The Five forces that shape StrategyRivalry among existing co

The Five forces that shape Strategy
Rivalry among existing competitors
Threat of new entrants
Bargaining power of supplies
Bargaining power of buyers
Threat of substitute products or services
Emerging and Converging
Technologies
emerging/converging technologies:

-
ing field of machine ethics, and it describes a
“dynamic” ethical framework for addressing chal-
lenges likely to arise from emerging technologies.
Converging Technologies and
Technological Convergence
converging technologies, we first consider
what is meant by the concept of
“technological convergence.”
technological convergence occurs when
unrelated technologies or technological paths
intersect or “converge unexpectedly” to create an
entirely new field.
Technological Convergence
(Continued)
cybertechnology is by no means new or even recent,
but it has been ongoing since this technology’s
inception.
saw that early network

technologies resulted from the convergence of
computing and communications technologies in the
late 1960s and early 1970s.
-reality (VR)
technology (examined in Chapter 11) resulted from
the convergence of video technology and computer
hardware in the 1980s.
Converging Technologies and
Pervasive Computing
non-cybertechnologies at an unprecedented
pace.
-specific technologies are
converging with non-cybertechnologies, such as
biotechnology and nanotechnology.
ubiquitous as computing devices now permeate
both our public and private spaces (in connection
with ambient-intelligence-related technologies).
1. Ambient Intelligence (AmI)
technology that

enables people to live and work in environments
that respond to them in “intelligent ways” (Aarts
and Marzano, 2003; Brey, 2005; and Weber et al.,
2005).
(hypothetical) “intelligent home,” which incoprpoates
key aspects of (and is made possible by) AmI.
-1 in the textbook, which
illustrates an instance of the Internet of Tings (IoT)
and which is made possible, in large part, by AmI.
AmI (Continued)
possible by, developments in the field of arti-
ficial intelligence (AI), described in Chap. 11.
of three key technological components, which
underlie it:
1) pervasive computing,
2) ubiquitous communication,
3) intelligent user interfaces (IUIs).
1.1 Pervasive Computing

Computing, this technology is defined as a
computing environment where information
and communication technology are
“everywhere, for everyone, at all times.”
his technology is already integrated in our
everyday environments – i.e., from “toys,
milk cartons and desktops, to cars, factories,
and whole city areas.”
Pervasive Computing (Continued)
because of the increasing ease with which
circuits can be embedded into objects,
including wearable, even disposable items.
many dimensions of our lives.
sphere, cars, public transportation systems,
the health sector, the market, and our homes
(Bütschi, et al., 2005).
Pervasive Computing (Continued)
referred to as ubiquitous computing (or
ubicomp).

as
coined by Mark Weiser (1991), who
envisioned “omnipresent computers”
that serve people in their everyday
lives, both at home and at work.
1.2 Ubiquitous Communication
potential, continuous and ubiquitous commu-
nication between devices is also needed.
flexible and omnipresent communication
between interlinked computer devices
(Raisinghani et al., 2004) via:
-LANs),
-PANs),
-BANs),
1.3 Intelligent User Interfaces (IUIs)
have been made possible by
developments in AI.
beyond traditional interfaces such

as a keyboard, mouse, and
monitor.
IUIs (Continued)
technology by making it more intuitive and
more efficient than was previously possible
with traditional interfaces.
far more about a person – including
information about that person’s situation,
context, or environment – than was possible
with traditional interfaces.
IUIs (Continued)
and is virtually invisible to the user.
networked computers that are “aware of their
presence, personality, and needs.”
their environments.

Ethical and Social Issues
Affecting AmI
ethical/social issues affecting AmI:
1. freedom and autonomy;
2. technological dependency;
3. privacy, surveillance, and the
“Panopticon.”
1.3.1 Autonomy and Freedom Involving AmI
freedom will be enhanced or diminished as a
result of AmI technology.
umans will gain
more control over the environments with
which they interact because technology will
be more responsive to their needs.
pointing out that “greater control” is
presumed to be gained through a “delegation
of control to machines.”
Autonomy and Freedom
(Continued)

make the human environment more
controllable, noting that it can:
i. become more responsive to the voluntary
actions, intentions, and needs of users;
ii. supply humans with detailed and personal
information about their environment;
iii. do what people want without having to
engage in any cognitive or physical effort.
Autonomy and Freedom
(Continued)
so describes three ways that AmI can
diminish the amount of control that humans have
over their environments, where users may lose
control because a smart object can:
i. make incorrect inferences about the user, the
user’s actions, or the situation;
ii. require corrective actions on the part of the
user;
iii. represent the needs and interests of parties
other than the user.
1.3.2 Technological Dependency

depend on cybertechnology in conducting so
many activities in our day-to-day lives.
the kind of smart objects and smart
environments (made possible by AmI
technology) in ways that exceed our current
dependency on cybertechnology?
Technological Dependency
(Continued)
having to worry about performing many of
our routine day-to-day tasks, which can be
considered tedious and boring.
eliminate much of the cognitive effort that
has, in the past, enabled us to be fulfilled and
to flourish as humans.
Technological Dependency
(Continued)
lose some of our cognitive capacities
because of an increased dependency on
cybertechnology?
-2 (in the textbook),

based on E. M. Forster’s insights about
what could happen to a society that
becomes too dependent on machines.
1.3 Privacy, Surveillance, and the
Panopticon
h (2001) argues that with respect
to privacy and surveillance, four features
differentiate AmI from other (mostly earlier)
kinds of computing applications:
i. ubiquity,
ii. invisibility,
iii. sensing,
iv. memory application.
Privacy, Surveillance, and the
Panopticon (Continued)
devices are ubiquitous or omnipresent in AmI
environments, privacy threats are more
pervasive in scope.
virtually invisible in AmI environments, it is
unlikely that users will realize that computing
devices are present and are being used to

collect and disseminate their personal data.
Privacy, Surveillance, and the
Panopticon (Continued)
s that AmI poses a
more significant threat to privacy than earlier
computing technologies because:
a) sensing devices associated with IUIs may
become so sophisticated that they will be
able to sense (private) human emotions like
fear, stress, and excitement;
b) this technology has the potential to create a
memory or “life-log” – i.e., a complete
record of someone’s past.
Surveillance and the Panopticon
environments, no one can be sure that
he or she is not being observed.
be prudent for a person to assume that
information about his or her presence
(at any location and at any time) is
being recorded.

Surveillance and the Panopticon
(Continued)
es that it is realistic to assume that
any activity (or inactivity) about us that is
being monitored in an AMU environment may
be used in any context in the future.
to a virtual “panopticon.”
cenario 12-3 (in the textbook),
based on Bentham’s idea of the Panopticon.
-related threats does it anticipate?
Table 12-1 Ambient Intelligence
Technological
Components
Ethical and Social
Issues Generated
Pervasive Computing Freedom and
Autonomy
Ubiquitous
Communication
Privacy and
Surveillance

Intelligent User
Interfaces (IUIs)
Technological
Dependence
2. Nanotechnology and
Nanocomputing
controversies arise at the intersection of
two distinct technologies that are now
also converging – viz., cybertechnology
and nanotechnology.
(2006) argue that nanotechnology
provides the “key” to technological
convergence in the 21st century.
Defining Nanotechnology
“the study, design, and manipulation of natural
phenomena, artificial phenomena, and
technological phenomena at the nanometer
level.”
coined the
term nanotechnology in the 1980s, describes the
field as a branch of engineering dedicated to the

development of extremely small electronic
circuits and mechanical devices built at the
molecular level of matter.
Nanotechnology and
Nanocomputing
in nanotechnology will result in computers at
the nano-scale, no bigger in size than
bacteria, called nanocomputers.
various types of architectures.
An electronic nanocomputer would operate in
a manner similar to present-day computers,
differing primarily in terms of size and scale.
Nanotechnology and
Nanocomputers (continued)
nanocomputers, imagine a mechanical or
electronic device whose dimensions are
measured in nanometers (billionths of a
meter, or units of 10-9 meter).
-scale
computers will be able to deliver a billion
billion instructions per second – i.e., a billion
times faster than today’s desktop computers.

Nanotechnology and
Nanocomputing (continued)
development, some primitive nanocomputing
devices have already been tested.
er memory
devices with eight platinum wires that are 40
nanometers wide on a silicon wafer have
been developed (Moor and Weckert, 2004).
more than one thousand of these chips to be
the width of a human hair.
Nanoethics: Identifying and Analyzing
Ethical Issues in Nanotechnology
assessing ethical issues that arise at the
nano-scale is important because of the kinds
of “policy vacuums” that are raised.
do not argue that a separate field of
applied ethics called nanoethics is necessary.
analysis of ethical issues at the nano-level is
now critical.

Nanoethics (Continued)
distinct kinds of ethical concerns at
the nano-level that warrant
analysis:
1. privacy and control;
2. longevity;
3. runaway nanobots.
Ethical Aspects of
Nanotechnology: Privacy Issues
to construct nano-scale information-gathering
systems that can also track people.
-
scale transmitter in a room, or onto
someone’s clothing.
devices are present or that they are being
monitored and tracked by them.
Ethical Aspects of Nanotechnology:
Longevity Issues

see longevity as a good thing, there
could also be negative consequences.
hat we
could have a population problem if the
life expectancy of individuals were to
change dramatically.
Longevity Issues (Continued)
children are born relative to adults, there
could be a concern about the lack of new
ideas and “new blood.”
arise with regard to how many “family sets”
couples, whose lives could be extended
significantly, would be allowed to have during
their expanded lifetime.
Runaway Nanobots
when nanobots work to our benefit, they
build what we desire.

build what we don’t want.
-
lication of these bots could get out of hand.
nanobots) as the “grey goo scenario.”
Should Research/Development in
Nanocomputing Be Allowed to Continue?
computer science research that can have
“irreversible and not entirely unforeseeable side
effects” should not be undertaken.
developments in nanocomputing are threatening
to make us an “endangered species,” the only
realistic alternative is to limit its development.
of nanotechnology, we must seriously consider
whether research in this area should be limited.
Should Nanotechnology Research/
Development Be Prohibited?
and others on liminting nano-level research.

nanotechnology is prohibited, or even
restricted, it will be done “underground.”
regulated by governments and by
professional agencies concerned with social
responsibility.
Should We Presume in Favor of
Continued Nano Research?
ckert (2006) argues that potential
disadvantages that could result from research
in a particular field are not in themselves
sufficient grounds for halting research.
presumption in favor of freedom in research.
permissible to restrict or even forbid research
where it can be clearly shown that harm is
more likely than not to result from that
research.
Assessing Nanotechnology Risks: Applying
the Precautionary Principle
scientific research when there are concerns
about harm to the public good are often
examined via the Precautionary Principle.

precautionary principle to mean the following:
If some action has a possibility of causing
harm, then that action should not be
undertaken or some measure should be put in
its place to minimize or eliminate the potential
harms.
Nanotechnology, Risk, and the
Precautionary Principle (Continued)
precautionary principle is applied to questions
about nanotechnology research and
development, it needs to be analyzed in
terms of three different “categories of harm”:
1) direct harm,
2) harm by misuse,
3) harm by mistake or accident.
scenario in which the use of nanoparticles in products
could be damaging to the health of some people.

harm are very different from those arising in the example
they use to illustrate harm by misuse – i.e., developments
in nano-electronics that could endanger personal privacy.
Moor describe a scenario in which nanotechnology could
lead to the development of self-replicating, and thus
“runaway,” nanobots. (This kind of harm will occur only if
mistakes are made or accidents occur).
nanotechnology via the precautionary principle, we need to look
at not only potential harms per se, but also at the relationship
between “the initial action and the potential harm.”
fairly
clear and straightforward: we simply need to know more about
the scientific evidence for nanoparticles causing harm.
e.g.,
in endangering personal privacy, the relationship is less clear.
f harm, Weckert and Moor
claim
that we need evidence regarding the “propensity of humans to
make mistakes or the propensity of accidents to happen.”

olution or strategy:
If a prima facie case can be made that some
research will likely cause harm...then the
burden of proof should be on those who want
the research carried out to show that it is safe.
...a presumption in favour of freedom until
such time a prima facie case is made that the
research is dangerous. The burden of proof
then shifts from those opposing the research
to those supporting it. At that stage the
research should not begin or be continued
until a good case can be made that it is safe.
3. Autonomous Machines (AMs)
example of an emerging technology that can
have a significant ethical impact.
ystem/agent/
robot that is capable of acting and making
decisions independently of human oversight.
(changes in) its environment and it can learn

(as it functions).
AMs (Continued)
“autonomous machine” includes three
conceptually distinct, but sometimes overlapping,
autonomous technologies:
1) (autonomous) artificial agents,
2) autonomous systems,
3) (autonomous as opposed to “tele”) robots.
ks together these otherwise
distinct (software) programs, systems, and entities is
their ability to act autonomously, or at least act
independently of human intervention.
AMs (Continued): Some Examples
and Applications
ort by the UK’s Royal Academy
of Engineering identifies various kinds of devices,
entities, and systems that also fit nicely under our
category of AM, which include:
ense applications

(e.g., “drones”);
AMs (Continued): Some Examples
and Applications
rs
in which AMs (or what he calls “robots”) now
operate., six of which include:
Can an AM Be an (Artificial) Moral
Agent?

agents because they
between “moral patients” (as receivers of moral act-
ion) and moral agents (as sources of moral action).
consideration (minimally at least) as moral patients,
even if they are unable to qualify as moral agents.
AMs as Moral Agents (Continued)
qualify as moral agents because of their (moral)
efficacy.
AMs have moral efficacy, argues that AMS qualify
only as “moral entities” and not moral agents
because AMs lack freedom.
lack consciousness and intentionality, they
cannot satisfy the conditions for moral agency.

AMs as Moral Agents: Moor’s
Model
analyzing this question by focusing on various
kinds of “moral impacts” that AMs can have.
as normative (non-moral) agents –
independently of the question whether they
are also moral agents – because of the
“normative impacts” their actions have
(irrespective of any moral impacts).
Moor’s Model (Continued)
are designed for specific purposes, they can
be evaluated in terms of how well, or how
poorly, they perform in accomplishing the
tasks they are programmed to carry out.
computer program designed to play chess
(such as Deep Blue) that can be evaluated
normatively (independent of ethics).

possible by computers can also be moral or ethical in
nature.
consequences, of (what he calls) “ethical agents” can
be analyzed in terms of four levels:
1. Ethical Impact Agents,
2. Implicit Ethical Agents,
3. Explicit Ethical Agents,
4. Full Ethical Agents.
me:
-impact-agents (i.e., the weakest sense of moral agent)
will have (at least some) ethical consequences to their acts;
-ethical-agents have some ethical considerations built
into their design and “will employ some automatic ethical
actions for fixed situations”;
-ethical-agents will have, or at least act as if they
have,
“more general principles or rules of ethical conduct that are
adjusted and interpreted to fit various kinds of situations”;
-ethical agents “can make ethical judgments about a wide

variety of situations” and in many cases can “provide some
justification for them.”
1. An ethical-impact agent can include a “robotic camel jockey”
(a
technology used in Qatar to replace young boys as jockeys, and
thus
freeing those boys from slavery in the human trafficking
business).
2. Implicit ethical agents include an airplane’s automatic pilot
system and
an ATM – both have built-in programming designed to prevent
harm
from happening to the aircraft, and to prevent ATM customers
from
being short-changed in financial transactions.
3. Explicit ethical agents would be able to calculate the best
ethical action
to take in a specific situation and would be able to make
decisions
when presented with ethical dilemmas.
4. Full-ethical agents have the kind of ethical features that we
usually
attribute to ethical agents like us (i.e., what Moor describes as
“normal
human adults”), including consciousness and free will.

- or full-ethical
(artificial) agents exist or that they will be available
anytime in the near term.
tinctions are very helpful, as we try to
understand various levels of moral agency that potentially
affect AAs.
Wallach and Allen (2009) believe that they can have
“functional morality,” based on two key dimensions:
i. autonomy,
ii. sensitivity to ethical values.
Wallach and Allen’s Criteria for
“Functional Morality” for AMs
systems with both high autonomy and high sensitivity.
that has significant autonomy (in a limited domain) but
little sensitivity to ethical values.
-decision support
systems (such as those used in the medical field to assist

doctors) provide decision makers with access to morally
relevant information (and thus suggest a high level of
sensitivity to moral values), but these systems have
virtually no autonomy.
Functional Morality (Continued)
Wallach and Allen argue that it is not
necessary that AMs be moral agents in
the sense that humans are.
design machines to act “as if” they are
moral agents and thus “function” as
such.
In What Sense of “Autonomy” are
AMs Autonomous?
-
ion with one’s “capacity to act independently.”
-Chul Son (2015) points out that that AMs (or
“autonomous technologies”) can undermine “human
autonomy” in both indirect and subtle ways.
that because AMs (autonomous systems) are “adapt-
ive,” they exhibit some degree of “independence.”
-
tain degree of “independence from its environment.”

“Functional Autonomy” for AMs
independently, or behave “as if” they are acting
independently, it would seem that we can attribute at
least some degree of autonomy to them.
autonomy, in the sense that humans can, is still
debatable.
described above can have “functional autonomy” and
thus …
Mary Barra’s Bumpy Ride at the Wheel of GM
Sept. 25, 2014
Barra, a former plant

manager, at GM’s Orion Assembly in Lake Orion, Michigan.
Photograph by Marco Grob for
TIME
The General Motors CEO has already faced a devastating
recall. Now she must reinvent the company—and its cars
GM CEO Mary Barra was, appropriately enough, in her car
when she heard the news that the
company she’d been appointed to run two weeks prior was about
to suffer the worst U.S.
product-safety crisis in recent memory. It was at the end of a
cold day in January, and her
chauffeur-driven Cadillac Escalade was taking her home from
the company’s headquarters in
downtown Detroit when one of her lieutenants, product-
development head Mark Reuss, rang
with some very bad news. It was about the ignition-switch
problem that would eventually lead to
the recall of 2.6 million GM cars. “He said he’d just learned we
had this problem with the
vehicles and that we had to do a recall, and that it was large,”
Barra recounts. “And then I
literally can’t remember [what happened next], because there
was a period of probably 30 days

where–I don’t want to say it was a blur–but things were
happening so quickly as we started to
look through what we needed to do.”
Those 30 days were the start of a very difficult 2014 for GM.
The ignition-switch problems have
so far been blamed for at least 21 deaths, more than 500
injuries, four grueling congressional
testimonies by Barra, a $400 million victim-compensation fund
to be doled out by former 9/11-
http://time.com/author/rana-foroohar/
https://twitter.com/RanaForoohar
fund director Ken Feinberg and a damning internal investigation
conducted by former U.S.
Attorney Anton Valukas. The 325-page Valukas report
confirmed the worst: GM had known
about the switch problem since 2001, but because of a culture of
silence, obfuscation and buck-
passing, no one had taken steps to fix the problem. There are
continuing investigations of GM by
the U.S. Department of Justice, the Securities and Exchange
Commission and 45 state attorneys
general as well as more than 100 private lawsuits. Meanwhile,
GM has been battered by the

recalls of nearly 27 million more vehicles with different issues
this year.
GM fired 15 employees who were determined to have been
involved in the switch crisis, but
Barra and her top team were exonerated on the basis that they
had been unaware of the problem.
“The day I read [the Valukas report] was one of the saddest
days of my career,” says Barra, a 34-
year GM veteran. “The most frightening part to me was that [the
report] said everything that
everyone’s criticized us about” over the years. “It was like a
punch.”
It’s hard to imagine a new CEO being dealt a tougher hand.
None of this was, as Barra puts it
with grim humor, “in the glossy brochures.” Yet she has
marched through her first year with
good marks; her handling of the immediate situation has been
lauded by many experts as a model
for corporate crisis management.
Barra’s legacy, and GM’s future, will depend on much more
than how she handles the switch
crisis. Only five years after declaring bankruptcy and with a
large chunk of its profit this year
likely to be wiped out by the recall problems, GM needs to sell

some cars. Barra is betting the
company’s future on technology (she has committed to putting a
nearly self-driving car on the
road by 2016), luxury (GM announced on Sept. 23 that Cadillac
would become its own business
unit, with headquarters in New York City) and China, which is
already Buick’s No. 1 global
market.
She’s also trying to take back market share in trucks, which
have higher profit margins than cars.
In September, GM began selling two new midsize pickups that
Barra okayed as head of product
development: the Chevy Colorado and the GMC Canyon, which
will squeeze out a segment-
leading 27 m.p.g. (8.7 L/100 km) on the highway, thanks to a
200-horsepower, four-cylinder
engine. By next year, more Barra vehicles–such as a yet-to-be-
named Cadillac and five new
Chevrolets, including a new extended-range Volt electric car–
are set to roll off the lines.
Perhaps most important, Barra wants to make GM vehicles “the
safest in the industry,” a striking
goal given the switch crisis. To do so, she’ll have to change a
dysfunctional corporate culture in

which, as the Valukas report put it, “no single person owned
any decision.” It is a problem that
has been with GM for ages. The question now is whether a
woman who’s never worked outside
that culture, who was supported in college and business school
by the company and whose father
spent 39 years as a GM diemaker, can fundamentally change it.
Plenty of smart people believe
she can: Warren Buffett, who told me recently that he wished
“her father could see her now,”
bought a Cadillac as a show of support. Certainly, the GM
workforce is behind her: as one senior
staffer told me, “people were f-cking elated when she got the
job.”
But some former insiders, like past GM CEO Edward Whitacre
Jr., are more equivocal in their
praise. The reality is complex. After spending time with Barra
for multiple interviews and
watching her interact with hundreds of employees, it’s clear to
me that her status as a GM lifer is
deeply wired into her identity, but she combines it with a
carefully controlled independent streak

that may ultimately prove the key to remaking the company.
The Insider’s Outsider
Barra, 52, is preternaturally energetic and likable in a down-to-
earth, Midwestern kind of way.
Our initial day together begins at 5:30 a.m. with an hour-long
drive to a GM facility in Burton,
Mich., in charge of assembling replacements for the faulty
ignition switches. Despite the early
start, Barra, who forgoes coffee in favor of a Diet Coke she
keeps at her side, is alert and
chipper. “I grew up in operations, and plants start early, so I’m
kind of used to it,” she says.
Despite the breezy chitchat, it’s not easy to get to know her.
She’s wary and on message in our
first interview, and only later, when I assure her that readers are
interested in much more than the
Valukas report, does she let down her guard a bit. We talk about
her kids, a son who’s thinking
about colleges and hopes to study bioengineering and a daughter
who’s more of a creative type,
into fashion and writing. Barra, who has been married for 29
years to Tony Barra, a consultant, is
by her admission no domestic goddess; her daughter sometimes
does the cooking. (They don’t

have a housekeeper.)
An engineer at heart, she’s stylish but practical. At one point, I
compliment her on her killer
black suede heels. “Manolos?” I ask. “Yeah, I have a shoe
thing,” she says, wrinkling her nose
with a bit of guilt. “And they are really comfortable!” Later,
when a Time reporter tries to verify
Barra’s shoe brand, GM tells us that “Mary is a very private
person and has requested that you
don’t name the brand of her shoes.” Perhaps she’s concerned
that we’ll emphasize her style over
her substance, but I’ve asked plenty of male CEOs sartorial
questions. How much they care (or
not) can be quite telling.
It soon becomes clear that she is, like many working women, an
expert in balancing the public
and the private. She shifts gears effortlessly in one meeting
from an analysis of the switch crisis
to the geopolitics of China to a refreshingly candid discussion
of work-life balance. “Any
company will take 24/7 from you and not even feel bad,” she
says. “You’ve just got to keep
balancing, learning and adjusting, and kind of not sweat it.” I

soon realize this is part of what
explains her phenomenal popularity inside the company; she
isn’t “leaning in” or sitting for
Vogue spreads or using her position as the world’s highest-
profile female CEO to make any
particular statement. She’s just running a 219,000-person
company that brings in $150 billion in
revenue annually with more emotional intelligence and better
communication skills than many of
the men who came before her.
In that sense, Barra has already shifted GM’s culture–though
culture is a word she deeply
dislikes, in part because she’s walking a fine line, trying to
change things without totally
condemning an organization that many people, herself included,
have given their lives to. “I hate
the word culture, because it’s like this thing that sits out there,”
says Barra. “What is it? It’s how
we behave. It’s the stories we tell about the company.”
Today Barra is talking to about 300 employees at a town-hall-
style meeting at GM’s Customer
Care and Aftersales headquarters in Burton, which is
responsible for the logistics of the ignition-

switch recall. Clad in a simple black pantsuit, Barra sits on a
stool, daytime-TV style, on a well-
lit stage. Off to her side is a shiny black Camaro convertible,
her current favorite model. She’s
here because, as her minders tell me, this particular facility has
been working long hours on
recalls and has beaten the delivery goals.
This is plainly a morale-building mission. She talks up how well
the “team” is doing (she’s all
about the team), meets with workers who deserve special
recognition, stresses the importance of
re-establishing trust with consumers (“We won’t get a second
chance,” she tells a group of
middle managers) and tries to drum home the message of the
newly rewritten GM core-values
statement: the customer comes first. “We’re in an industry
where, when people get a new car, it’s
an exciting day,” Barra says. “Some people name their car!”
The audience listens intently,
feeling the love.
Smoothly, Barra turns a bit sober. “I’m a second-generation GM
employee. None of us expected

[the crisis]. But we knew we had to do the right thing, and we
had to be transparent. We had to
be focused on the customer.” Standing ovation. Barra takes
questions, many of which begin with
praise for her. “I just want to say how proud I am of how you
are representing us and telling our
story,” says a female African-American manager. Says another
participant: “You’re running the
greatest company in the world. You’re a mother. You’re a wife.
How do you get some Mary
time?” Everyone laughs. Barra talks about how she likes to
sneak away to watch her kids play
soccer or volleyball or ice hockey. Suddenly, it feels like we a re
on The View rather than in a
corporate-crisis meeting.
This, I came to think, is Barra’s singular advantage. As a
member of a family with 73 years of
GM service, she’s the consummate insider. Yet as a woman–the
first to lead a major automaker –
and someone with a very different personal style from most of
her predecessors, she seems more
like an outsider. That ability to both project a sense of change
and engender trust in a company
that’s still filled with lifers is one of the reasons Barra got her

job. Early on, her former boss and
mentor Dan Akerson was referring to Barra as a “change agent.”
Yet it’s a mark of how much
more change GM still needs to undergo that a rewriting of the
corporate mission to explicitly put
the customer first counts as a big idea.
To listen to Barra recount the list of changes she’s orchestrated
at GM–where she has held
positions from assistant to the CEO, to engineer, to plant
manager, to head of human resources,
head of manufacturing and director of product development–is
to understand how deeply
dysfunctional the company has been for so long. “I remember
when I was in HR, I changed the
dress-code policy to ‘Dress appropriately,'” says Barra.
Afterward, a manager in charge of tens
of millions of dollars in business came to her with a request that
she write a more explicitly
worded dress-code policy so he wouldn’t have to have an
uncomfortable conversation with team
members who wore jeans or too-short skirts. That experience,
says Barra, “was such a window
into the company. A manager should be able to handle
something like that.”

Indeed, Barra continues to struggle with getting even high-level
staffers to take personal
responsibility. Recently she got a call from a woman in charge
of planning a meeting with senior
staff. She wanted to double-check on who should attend, citing
changes Barra had made to the
“dynamic” of the meeting. “My note back to her was, ‘Well,
who do you think should attend?
Based on the agenda. You’ve been running this meeting for
several years. Who do you think
should attend?'” The next morning, a list was presented to
Barra. “I said, ‘Perfect,'” she says,
smiling.
Fixing all that is critical, not only for Barra’s success but also
for anyone who gets behind the
wheel of a GM car. This sort of “transactional” decisionmaking,
as Barra puts it, in which
everyone colors inside the lines of their own precise job
description without thinking
independently or “holistically,” helped create the ignition-
switch crisis. Barra continues to insist
that employees absolutely would have put their hands up if the

switch problem had been properly
understood to be a safety issue, but it wasn’t. The Valukas
report supports her take while also
stressing that GM employees were working in a culture in which
cost cutting affected decisions
on quality. The Justice Department will no doubt be parsing that
narrative carefully.
In GM’s old-think view, the switch crisis was the result of a
mistaken step in a long process: the
engineer in charge of the switches redesigned the faulty part
without renumbering it, thus
obscuring a change that could have helped various divisions
uncover the issue in mysterious
reports of stalled cars over the years. But the mislabeling of the
switch problem early on, as a
“customer satisfaction” issue rather than a safety issue, also
reflects an internal practice of
hoarding rather than sharing information. People were afraid to
pass bad news up the food chain.
In management-theory speak, GM is a deeply “siloed” place.
And that’s not healthy.
“We didn’t have world-class processes,” says Barra. “But then
again, we also didn’t have world-
class behaviors of ‘Hey, pick up the phone, make sure

something’s done.'”
Change of this sort sounds basic, but in a company of this size
hurtling with decades of
momentum and practice in the old ways, it’s not easy–as any
number of former GM leaders will
tell you. “There was a sense of insularity,” says Whitacre, the
onetime telecom executive who
served as chairman and CEO of GM during its insolvency. “It
was tough to get to know people
and get a sense of the organizational structure.” Does he see
Barra as up to the challenge of
fixing it? Whitacre hedges: “I wouldn’t call her a change agent,
but she certainly wanted to do
things differently.”
Barra also gets mixed reviews from Bob Lutz, the former vice
chairman of GM and a storied car
guy who favored Reuss, the product-development head, for the
top job. “I didn’t see her as one
of the disruptive people in a meeting who would raise their
hands and say, ‘Excuse me, Bob, but
I don’t think, with all due respect, that’s going to work.’ She
always came across to me as being
nonconfrontational.” Still, says Lutz–whom no one would ever
accuse of shying away from

confrontation–he likes the fact that she’s an engineer rather than
a financier, like most of the
CEOs of the past few generations. “She’s always been on the
side of the company that actually
makes things. And that’s a good sign, because those people are
way more grounded in the reality
of what goes on as opposed to the financial folks who float at
the top and delegate everything.”
Car Guys (and Gals)
Car Guys tend to have big Egos, Swagger and a certain street
cred gained by doing things like
putting elbow grease into their own vehicles and being able to
recite model minutiae like
baseball stats. (Reuss, the son of a former GM president, has a
screen saver of a vintage Corvette
he rebuilt from scratch.) That’s not Barra: her persona is
somewhere between soccer mom and
smooth-spoken corporate intellectual. Yet she seems to have
unconditional support from
traditionalists like Reuss, perhaps in part because she’s so team-
oriented. When I ask about new
car models she’s greenlighted, Barra quickly gives Reuss credit

for much of the new technology
and systems integration in the soon-to-appear Cadillac and
Buick models, which feature things
like active safety systems and a 4G LTE OnStar link that makes
your car a traveling wi-fi hot
spot. Despite an American business culture that has put the
focus on celebrity CEOs, research
shows that successful corporations are built on successful
teams; Barra’s focus on the group is
strategically smart.
The next 12 months are vital for GM and Barra, because the
company will release a series of
Marymobiles–vehicles created under her watch when she ran
product development–that are
urgently needed to revamp the product line. First out are
midsize, four-cylinder pickups: Chevy’s
Colorado and GMC’s matching Canyon. Pickups are a critical
market for GM because of the
profit margins and the stiff competition from Ford and Ram.
The next generation of Cruze, GM’s
top-selling car, will debut on a new global underbody it w ill
share with other GM models. And
then there’s the high-tech Caddy from the newly independent
Cadillac division. But in the core

of the car market, Barra faces another challenge: Chevy’s dull
Impala and Malibu sedans won’t
be redone for another year.
While Barra may not be a traditional car guy, she’s also no bean
counter. This is a woman who,
when growing up in a working-class family in Waterford, Mich.,
dreamed of becoming an
engineer. She was one of only a few women to study electrical
engineering at General Motors
Institute, now called Kettering University. Barra tells me that as
a girl, when her curling iron
would break, she would go with her father–a veteran of Pontiac
Plant No. 14–into his basement
workshop and take it apart. “We might not get it back together,
but we’d try to understand how it
worked.”
Barra still seems most comfortable on a shop floor. On this
August morning, she’s arrived at
8:50 sharp for a tour of the Davison Road Processing Center
plant, which is in charge of
assembling and packing the new ignition switches into boxes.
She’s traded the Manolos for a
pair of sensible pumps and a yellow safety vest with her name

on the back. She moves quickly
from point to point in the factory, receiving briefings from
managers, line leaders, union reps and
workers, one of whom is wearing a T-shirt with World War II’s
Rosie the Riveter and her We
can do it! slogan.
The tour leader explains to Barra that if she hears the phrase
“Mrs. Johnson,” it is plant lingo for
the average customer. “I love that you are talking about ‘Mrs.
Johnson’–that’s a great example of
how we care about the customer,” says Barra, interspersing her
examination with compliments
(“I know you’ve been working weekends and evenings”) and
questions (“How much longer
would it take to package all this if we switched to a different-
size box?”) and even putting
together a few switches herself (she drops parts at first but
quickly recalibrates, adjusting her
hand movements and position until she can keep up with the
line).
At one point Barra stops abruptly alongside a line worker using
a small magnetic tool to pick up

tiny parts and move them into place more precisely. “That’s so
interesting. I’ve never seen that
tool before,” says Barra. The worker, a middle-aged African-
American woman, tells her that she
picked it up at a dollar store. “What a clever idea. That’s so
creative,” says Barra. “What a great
way to problem-solve.”
Later, in a meeting with higher-level staff, Barra tells the story
about the dollar-store tool. Terry
Hoover, an industrial engineer in operations at the Davison
Road plant who’s sitting near me in
the meeting, says he’s been with the company for 35 years and
has never heard of a GM CEO
doing this kind of “in the weeds” plant visit–which even if true
is a revealing glimpse into
attitudes about management. “I was really impressed with how
she’s handled the whole crisis,
the Senate testimony in particular. I think she handled it a lot
better than previous leaders would
have. There would have been defensiveness and denial –a ‘We
didn’t do it’ kind of attitude. But
you can’t do that with this, and she didn’t.”
When I repeat the comment to Barra, she winces slightly. It’s
clear that it pains her to hear

criticism of anyone who’s been on “the team.” She certainly
won’t cop to details of any heated
internal debate over how to handle the crisis, something that
would seem inevitable at a company
with as many stakeholders as GM. “We never considered being
anything but factual and
transparent.” Did that mean she never got pressure from anyone,
inside or outside the company,
to do things differently?
This is the one portion of the interview in which Barra averts
her eyes slightly. “There were
different views put on the table,” she says, adding later that
some of the people who put those
views out there are no longer at the table. “We had people with
different experiences, but I think
the small team that we had [meaning the initial war-room team]
had a lot of respect for each
other. We very quickly started saying, ‘What’s the right thing to
do for the customer?'”
At the top of Barra’s list has been acting on the myriad
recommendations from the Valukas
report. She says her team has already implemented about 90%
of them, including restructuring

operations to prioritize safety and creating a more open
environment for employees to raise a
hand when there are problems. As head of product development
and manufacturing, Barra had
already done quite a lot of streamlining of the firm’s plants.
Now she’s trying to shift the entire
organizational structure: to stop viewing a car as simply a
collection of 30,000 parts, more or less
well engineered and individually designed. Instead, she says, it
is a system that has to integrate
increasing amounts of complexity. Think vehicle-to-vehicle
communications, wireless
capabilities and self-driving cars.
All this was the focus of Barra’s speech on Sept. 7 at the annual
Intelligent Transport Society
conference, where she announced GM’s goal to bring a
practically self-driving Cadillac off the
line by 2016. Customers from L.A. to Beijing want automakers
to “mitigate, if not eliminate, the
congestion, pollution and traffic accidents that are the downside
of automobiles,” which self-
driving cars could help do.
As unlikely as it may now seem, Barra hopes that safety will
actually become GM’s competitive

advantage. “We used to have an organizational structure built
around parts–the body, the interior,
the electrical structure,” says Barra. Unfortunately, she adds,
that created a situation in which
people “were expert in this or that without recognizing people
don’t buy this or that–they buy a
car, and we’ve got to pull it together, and people have to talk.”
The Valukas report provided an impetus to speed up Barra’s
push for a more systems-focused
way of thinking at GM, something already under way before the
crisis, but one with safety at the
center. Now a dozen systems czars in areas like materials,
digital security and product integrity
work in a kind of spoke-and-hub style, with Jeff Boyer, the
newly appointed vice president of
global safety, in the middle of it all. The hope is that
developing products this way will help
catch issues like the ignition-switch problem in the future–and
make safety a hallmark selling
feature of GM’s cars.
Barra has put the big brains in the company on implementing
the Valukas recommendations.

One of GM’s best engineers, Kevin Wong, has been tasked with
doing a root-to-branch
evaluation of the systems structure. But she’s also seeking ideas
from outside, with Reuss
leading a team that is talking to leaders in the aerospace
industry, the Navy and NASA about
how to manage organizational complexity and avoid
catastrophic failures.
Other CEOs and global leaders have reached out with
unsolicited advice or just a pat on the back
and a comforting “Hang in there.” One is JPMorgan CEO Jamie
Dimon. Barra says she
appreciates how well he defended his people in the aftermath of
the 2008 crash and that he was
so “transparent” when communicating through a crisis. On her
bedside table is Condoleezza
Rice’s memoir No Higher Honor. “I find it fascinating because
she shares so much about exactly
what she was thinking” during various geopolitical crises, Barra
says.
Plenty of people will be interested to know exactly what Mary
Barra is thinking as she navigates
an American corporate icon through the product-safety crisis of
the decade. Will her tenure as

the first female CEO of a U.S. auto major be dogged by the
results of the Justice Department
investigation? Or will she become a Harvard Business School
case study in how to manage
corporate crises in the 21st century? Barra’s hopes for her
legacy are less complicated: “I just
want to be part of the team that helped make GM the company I
know it can be.”
This appears in the October 6, 2014 issue of TIME.

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