In 2018, Jim Morgan had an excellent conversation on the WLEI podcast with his former colleague Dave Pericak, the Ford chief engineer who oversaw the extensive redesign of the 2015 Ford Mustang to mark the iconic car’s 50th anniversary.
It’s one of the Lean Enterprise Institute’s most popular podcasts, I believe, because Dave captures what it means to be an effective chief engineer and explains the significance of this role to an organization and to a team. Even better, Dave speaks honestly about the huge challenges and rewards of taking on such a position, maintaining your team’s trust along the way. Read on for some of our favorite excerpts from Morgan’s conversation with Pericak.
Keep calm and deliver
“Once we were in the middle of the testing phase … Stuff starts to fail and things start to happen, and that’s just normal product development … People were lining up outside of my office to bring in bad news. [I walked out] and said, ‘Hey, we take all problems, just one at a time.’ … You have to remain calm. As a chief engineer, [you are the rock for the team] … There’s nothing that we can’t do as people … Failure is not an option; it’s just a matter of what is the best way to work through the issue? What is the right decision?
“I think being very clear about [the plan] and how we’re going to attack it keeps the team calm and [enables progress]. The worst thing you can do is pause and have no progress; you’ve got to stay moving forward and do it in a way that is logical and makes sense. When we have big issues, I just break it down quickly, get to what I think is the right plan, and communicate it to the team … [Former Ford CEO] Alan Mulally used to say, ‘Put the issues down on paper. We can’t fix what we don’t know.’”
It takes a lot of conflict (handled with care) to create a great product
“Sometimes people think the program manager is like an assistant chief engineer, and that’s not true … My job was to push the envelope, motivate the team, set the vision, put the impossible out there, and tell the team we’re going to [make it happen]. The [program manager’s] job was to try to reel me in and keep me somewhat in line to the financials and [things] that we obviously had to deliver.
“He and I would always have one voice coming out of the office … In the office, it was a safe zone to honestly hash things out to make sure we were doing the right thing … I wanted to make sure that [I was listening to him] … And sometimes he would leave the office, shake his head, and just think, he’s lost his mind! But those are the realities of product development.”
Maintain humility as you listen to customers
“Our customers are people who live and breathe Mustangs. If you think just because of all your experience that you know all there is to know, then I think you’re going to fail … That’s where maybe a lot of companies struggle. If you’re going to design a [hugely successful] product, then you need to understand your customer … I’m talking about understanding the guy who cleans his car with a toothbrush … No matter what product you’re designing or selling or making, you need to truly be a part of the community …
“One of the huge surprises was when I went out west to California … People could not believe that we were still building, in their words, ‘that pig.’ What they meant was ‘a V8 is not responsible’ and they saw the car as kind of being an old-school, knuckle-dragging [vehicle] … People did think the Mustang was sexy and [cool], but did not see it as something that they would even consider [based on it] being irresponsible to the environment … So, I called some people back in Dearborn and said, ‘When I land, we have to huddle the team and change the way we look at this product.’ ”
Build products that create an emotional connection
“The Mustang makes people feel invincible. It almost transforms people into [superheroes] … So, you don’t compromise; every millimeter matters … You can look at a product—whether it’s a toaster, automobile, airplane, or whatever—and you can tell if the team that worked on it was passionate or just doing their job. If the product looks like it has a personality, then the team was passionate … Often this comes as a result of tension between engineers and the design studio … Engineers don’t like when the design studio makes things tough, but I always encouraged that [creative tension] because [without that], we probably didn’t have a great product.”
Passion is contagious
“We had a great product, but it was missing something … The [new Mustang] needed hips… wider quarter panels in the back to cover those rear wheels and show the power that exists in the Mustang and communicate that through the form … How did we get everybody aligned? I kept telling the manufacturing team, ‘Just tell me what it’s going to take’ …
“I think passion is contagious … I had a lot of people who would come into my office and think they were going to say no to whatever I had just asked. And everybody would usually walk out [saying] ‘I can’t believe we’re going to do this.’ But they walked out saying that because they felt the conviction and passion, and they knew I was going to be there to do whatever it took to make this work. That’s part of a chief engineer’s job; to let people know we’re not going to let the barriers get in our way.”
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