W hat is Michigan's first gentleman, Daniel Granholm Mulhern, thinking?
As Detroit's automakers plummet through various stages of free-fall, as home values slide, foreclosures rise and the very fabric of the state is stressed to the breaking point, he uses his weekly e-mail blast on leadership -- "Reading for Leading" -- to extol the leadership of Toyota.
In fact, is he thinking at all?
"Because I am married to the great governor of Michigan, I have had the chance to be a fly on the wall (generally a quiet and unobtrusive one) during meetings with executives from Toyota," he wrote in an e-mail sent Monday with "The Way of Toyota, Great " in the subject line.
"These Toyota execs are like those I have gotten to know from Fortune magazine's '100 Best Companies to Work For,' in that they get totally fired up when they start talking about the culture in their companies. The Toyota folks and the great company folks know that 'culture beats strategy' every time. They have strategies to achieve results."
Yes, they do, witness the competitive tsunami pushing Big Detroit Auto to the brink of all it holds dear -- jobs, plants, profits, market share, its standard of living, survival -- because Detroit waited way too long to rouse itself from its self-satisfied torpor.
'Messages are complicated'
But do we need the first gentleman, husband of the governor who ostensibly will "go anywhere and do anything" to create jobs, opining right now on the blockbuster leadership techniques of the foreign archrival kicking Detroit's collective behind?
Answer: No, we don't, especially when there are scores of analysts, academics, journalists and average-joe consumers variously equipped to trash Detroit with impunity and exalt the virtues of all things Toyota.
"My father worked for Ford for 38 years," Mulhern told me Tuesday. "I have never driven anything but a Ford. Anybody who thinks we're not supporting the home team, I think that's wrong."
Aren't you, of all people, sending the wrong message at a perilous time in the state, when the economy feels close to spinning out of control because its auto industry, under siege, is eliminating jobs, closing plants and cutting costs at a numbing speed?
"Messages are complicated," he replied. "To send a message is different than to receive a message. When people are sensitive, they may not hear a message."
That's one way of putting it.
If the symbolism of leadership means anything -- which it does -- what's the unintended message from the closest adviser to Michigan's chief executive? If nothing else, it's that the Granholm-Mulhern administration's coastal-elitist leanings tend to disconnect it from the parochial concerns of working folks and Michigan's own automakers.
"I just can't think of worse timing," says a General Motors exec, adding that colleagues were "fuming" about Mulhern's missive and what it suggests about the governor's support for Michigan business in general and Detroit's automakers in particular.
"Speaking of leading," a Ford exec says, "you're in a political position. What about the companies that are here? They have a tin ear."
Even fellow Democrats and some of the administration's friends in organized labor are complaining about the Toyota-is-great stunt, coming on the heels of Gov. Jennifer Granholm rejecting a plea from Rep. Joe Knollenberg, R-Bloomfield Hills, for help lobbying against sharp increases in federal fuel economy rules.
"In my 14 years in Congress, I have never seen the threat level be this high for anti-auto industry regulations," Knollenberg wrote. "Things could get much worse if the Big Three are forced to comply with a steep increase" in fuel-economy rules.
Granholm declined to help.
Lament, lambaste, repeat
The governor's office and her amen chorus may not want to hear it, but there's a clear pattern here: First, lament the contraction of major employers and the dislocation that comes with it.
Then, in rhetoric reeking of short-term political tactics that live much longer on the Web, trash business by petitioning for a cap on Big Oil profits or slamming Delphi Corp.'s bankruptcy or demonizing investment in China (which won't make Michigan attractive to Chinese investment) or touting Toyota's leadership.
Look, Toyota is the gold standard of the global auto industry. GM's manufacturing system basically is the Toyota system. Ford's new CEO is a longtime student of Toyota. And despite recent quality glitches -- recalls and a massive sludge settlement -- Toyota is still perceived to be the industry's quality leader.
That, we know. It's who's doing the reminding that's the problem, whatever his intentions may have been. What's next -- an Ode to Ohio State?
