It’s amazing what can happen when times get tough.  Some organizations use the turmoil to resize smartly—carefully thinking through each and every individual and their contributions to the bottom line—while others wield a hatchet, cutting those who fail to fit the “formula” set out by human resources.

You’d think with what’s happening in Detroit these days—market shares plummeting, profits in a freefall and gas prices rising—the auto industry would be smart in the processes they use to right-size their organizations for the new realities of the marketplace.  Wrong. 

Case in point:  Ford’s recent decision to pink-slip one of its most promising designers, Richard Gressens, chief designer for the Flex crossover.  Just weeks after his product hit showrooms with great fanfare, Ford told Gressens he was no longer needed.  Never mind the fact that his name and image has been plastered across newspapers and magazines throughout the world, and forget that days before he was sent packing Ford’s PR team sent him to Boston to represent the company as it displayed the Flex at Fenway Park in front of thousands of baseball fans (Gressens even got to spend time in the broadcast booth conducting play-by-play with the Boston Red Sox announcers).  This rising star was no longer vital to the team because he fell into the “formula.” 

What Ford may or may not realize is that laying off Gressens told employees and the rest of the world that even if you design a product that holds great promise and has generated significant buzz, you better get your cardboard box ready.  That’s the wrong message to send at a time when you want your organization to push boundaries and set a new course for the future in quick fashion.  

But this is typical Detroit, where fat cats get rewarded for their mistakes while the people who do the work dearly for decisions made in executive offices and conference rooms beyond their control. 

I pose this question to the ford human resources department: Why was Gressens sent packing when J Mays gets to keep his job?  Isn’t it Mays’s fault that Ford has had to revise its overall design theme in the U.S. three times in recent years?  Mays himself admits he made a mistake in the design of Ford’s much-hyped Five Hundred sedan, which failed to gain traction in the marketplace: “I think of all the cars I’ve designed in my career, I regret not pushing harder on that car,” he told AD&P in January 2007.  He also said, “I think, that [the Five Hundred] compromised itself in terms of style. But we will never make that mistake again. In fact, we haven’t made a mistake like that since we did it.”

What about the ’08 U.S. Focus, which has been widely and rightly panned for its hodge-podge design? Even the design team admits they had to compromise extensively on that vehicle to meet the budget constraints.  What Ford should have done was summoned Mays into the human resources department and handed him his pink slip.  That would have been a bold move and the right decision to make.  That would have sent a clear, unambiguous message throughout the organization that rational risks are rewarded but mediocrity has no place in the corporation.  Instead, he gets to keep his job in the executive suite.   It’s all about accountability and strategy, which seems to be lacking in Dearborn these days.