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With his relaxed and friendly operating
style, McPherson inaugurated a new culture at
Dana that emphasized collaboration, autonomy,
and an absence of control from the top. The
whole company changed—operations became
leaner, morale grew stronger, people
everywhere in the company took greater
responsibility for quality and productivity.
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Fast forward to 2008 after stockholders lost
their entire investment in the company. Dana
has emerged from Chapter 11 reorganization. A
new CEO, Gary Convis, has been recently
hired. From his extensive experience as head
of Toyota's North American manufacturing
operations, Convis speaks of a management
philosophy that could have been spoken by
McPherson:
"Manage as if you have no power." A mentor at Toyota offered those words of
advice. The advice has served Toyota
well—they are now widely admired as one of
the finest manufacturing companies in the world.
That simple management principle will
transform a culture the way that McPherson
transformed Dana in the 1970's. It puts the
control for key decisions in the hands of
people doing the work; it encourages
collaboration; it engenders a culture of
support rather than a culture of control.
It will once again transform Dana. The beauty of that simple principle is that
it implicitly creates collaborative teams.
People stop looking to management to make all
of the key decisions and start relying on one
another.
It engages people as active partners in the
production of products and services. They
begin to see their coworkers as allies,
working together to attain mutually held
objectives.
In resurrecting the Dana culture of the
1970's, Convis will likely demonstrate
Aristotle's counsel to Alexander: ONE can
be a very great number. As the designated
new leader of Dana, his personal supportive
style will begin to be assimilated throughout
a company of 35,000 employees.
When those 35,000 employees develop the
supportive culture that McPherson advocated
in the 1970's, ONE share of Dana stock can
again become a very great number.
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