After experiencing the pains of reform in 1980s and 1990s, Ford Company began to face new challenges of "cultural reform". 1998 the board of directors decided to appoint Nasser as CEO. At Nasser's initiative, Ford described four elements of the new corporate culture: having a global concept, paying attention to customers' needs, pursuing growth continuously, believing that "leaders are teachers", and gradually carrying out corporate culture reform. It is mainly composed of four parts: this is a half-year learning process, and the object is the senior managers in the enterprise. First, students must attend a five-day intensive training. During these five days, the senior management team served as lecturers, went through the process of team building with these students, discussed the challenges Ford faced, and assigned the project tasks to be carried out in the next six months.
In the next six months, students must spend13 of their time discussing, analyzing and completing the assigned tasks by email, video conference or even face to face. During this process, students will meet with the lecturers, that is, the senior management team, to discuss the difficulties and progress of the project.
Finally, students will participate in another intensive training, put forward reform ideas, and share, discuss and learn with the senior management team. Therefore, in this intensive training, the reform plan was immediately decided and implemented within one week. This plan was launched in 1996 when Nasser took over Ford, which not only made more than 100 senior executives of Ford become seed lecturers in the enterprise, but actually promoted Ford's global reform plan. This course is similar to the peak course, but the education target is extended to middle-level and grass-roots supervisors, and the execution time is about 100 days. The way to proceed is to start with a three-day intensive course, then assign special tasks, and discuss, share and make reform plans among students in 100 days. Finally, through intensive training, discuss and determine the reform plan.
In the whole leadership work, there are two special places: first, all students must participate in community service for half a day within 100 days. The main purpose of this approach is not only to let these future leaders know the spirit of "corporate citizenship" emphasized by Ford, but also to make them feel that there are so many people who need help more in their lives, so that they will no longer have a complaining or dissatisfied mentality. In addition, all students should present "new Ford" and "old Ford" by shooting videos to highlight the differences between the old and new cultures. Let's talk about Nasser's own business. Every Friday night, he sends emails to about 654.38 million Ford employees around the world to share his views on business. At the same time, he will encourage all employees to feedback any thoughts, opinions or suggestions.
Nasser believes that if Ford wants to change into a customer-oriented culture, it must train every employee to know how to run a business. Therefore, in his weekly emails, he will talk about global development trends, the merger of Chrysler and Mercedes-Benz, Ford's Asian market development and other topics, so that employees can understand the management views of executives and then have similar thinking angles.
Since the implementation of Ford's teaching reform plan, the culture of Ford Motor Company has gradually undergone some chemical changes. Not only more employees participated in the company's reform, but also more supervisors promised the ideas they taught. Although for a big company like Ford, the reform is indeed a long and arduous process. However, using the above model, Ford is gradually completing the reform plan and striving to become a customer-oriented enterprise.