American Icon: Alan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company by Bryce G. HoffmanMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Quite an extensive look at the state of the American auto industry during and immediately prior to the financial crisis of 2008, including the story of Ford avoiding bankruptcy. The book starts with Ford’s declining fortunes under Bill Ford, who steps aside as CEO to bring in Alan Mulally from Boeing. The book did an excellent job in setting the background for Mulally’s early tenure at Ford, including describing the board and Bill Ford’s management and style, Mulally’s experience at Boeing, and the detailed pursuit of Mulally for the CEO’s role. The second half of the book described Mulally’s management style and the company’s response to financial issues that ended with Ford’s American competitors in bankruptcy, but with Ford still operating without those protections. Mulally is often described here as having an engineer mindset, and his ability to manage the complexities of Ford through these financial issues is a good explanation of what that means. I found this to be a great story, and a great example of a business book that lets the reader take away ideas about how to approach problems, especially those managing many people with varied alliances within the company.
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