Here’s a lengthy piece from this week’s Economist magazine that outlines the culture shift at Ford that has allowed it to survive (and thrive) while other automakers required bailouts.  The opening paragraph says a lot about how things began to change:

SOON after Alan Mulally arrived as Ford’s chief executive in September 2006 he organised a weekly meeting of his senior managers and asked them how things were going. Fine, fine, fine, came the answers from around the table. “We are forecasting a $17 billion loss and no one has any problems!” an incredulous Mr Mulally exclaimed. When he asked the same question the next week, Mark Fields, head of Ford’s operations in the Americas, raised his hand and—in what once would have been a moment of career suicide—admitted that a defective part threatened to delay the launch of an important new car. The room fell silent, until Mr Mulally began to clap his hands. “Great visibility,” the new boss added.

From a strategy standpoint, culture is often ignored because it can be one of the hardest things to change.  That, however, doesn’t meant that it isn’t necessary to address.  It appears that Ford has been able to go down a path of culture change that is necessary to be a world-class competitor today.  Sometimes even companies have to hit rock-bottom to realize that things aren’t “fine.”  Sometimes even then it is too late to recover.  I recently read a great book called Dethroning the King: The Hostile Takeover of Anheuser-Busch, an American Icon that detailed the complacency of management at Anheuser-Busch prior to being purchased by InBev a few years ago.  The executives at A-B realized too late that changes needed to be made and it was only when they were about to be swallowed up that they even tried to act.  For them it was too little, too late.  It appears, for now, that Ford has been able to avoid a similar fate.

Read more at: Ford: Epiphany in Dearborn | The Economist.