Mark Fields, CEO-in-waiting at Ford, has held lots of demanding
jobs in his 25 years at the automaker — running far-flung operations in
Argentina, Japan and Europe, ordering drastic job cuts and plant closings at
home.
When
he takes over July 1 as president and CEO, however, he must juggle more demands
on his time than ever before: board meetings; constant invitations to speak and
accept awards and support civic and charitable causes; travel to every corner
of Ford’s world.
Last
week, a few hours after the announcement of his selection as CEO, I talked with
Fields about controlling his own calendar. How he spends his time — especially
what he does differently from preceding CEOs Alan Mulally and Bill Ford — will
be closely scrutinized for clues about what new directions Ford Motor might
take in the Mark Fields era.
“I’m very cognizant,” Fields said, “that when you become CEO,
you have to focus and choose and be very disciplined on how you spend your time
... but you don’t really know until you sit in the chair what it will be like.”
Here’s
how Bill Ford, now the automaker’s executive chairman, described it to me in
early 2002, a few months after taking the CEO reins from Jacques Nasser: “I
used to have a lot of hobbies, and I don’t anymore. And that’s OK. I used to
like to fly-fish. I used to like to play tennis, play hockey, but right now my
entire life is my family and the Ford Motor Co., and that’s it.”
Ford
said then that he was very tough on controlling his own calendar “because the
system will grab someone in my position 24 hours a day, seven days a week and
plan me for the next five years if I let it happen.”
During
most of Fields’ career at Ford outposts around the world, his wife and two sons
have lived in Florida and he commuted to see them as often as possible.
That’s
changing now, not so much because of Fields’ new job but rather, the age of the
sons. His oldest, 20, is now attending the University of Michigan, and the
18-year-old will be heading to college in the fall. Fields has purchased a
house in southeast Michigan and said his wife will be spending much more time
here.
He
has always set aside personal time for physical fitness — “I work out to stay
totally focused and energized; it helps me work through any stress or
pressure,” he said.
Since
being promoted to chief operating officer in late 2012, Fields has been running
Ford’s weekly Thursday morning Business Process Review (BPR) meetings for top
executives, instituted by Mulally — and will continue to do so. He has no
immediate plans to name a COO.
Look
for him to do considerable globe-trotting, as Ford’s presence in Asia, the
Middle East and other markets grows. And expect Fields to be more engaged
locally in civic and community affairs than Mulally, the former Boeing
executive from Seattle who joined Ford in mid-crisis when the company’s
survival was at stake, and left the community interaction mainly to Bill Ford.
“Clearly,”
Fields said, “I’ll have a mix of spending time on strategic issues, operational
issues and traveling — I love traveling, I love going out and meeting Ford team
members around the world. I think it’s important for me to go and see, and to be seen, so that the entire
global organization knows that they’re important.”
An
ancillary benefit of his frequent travel is time for reading. “I’m a voracious
reader,” he said, part of a dual approach to improving mind and body.
On
the local front, Fields said he “got really energized by my time working with
the United Way,” as head of the 2013-14 charitable giving campaign in southeast
Michigan. “I would like to find time to do some of that, helping in the
community.”
Noel
Tichy, longtime University of Michigan business professor and author who once
ran General Electric’s leadership training institute when Jack Welch was CEO,
said Fields must “look for ways to leverage the hell out of his calendar.”
“One
of the things I say when I work with a CEO is, ‘Your scarcest asset is time,’
to help them think in terms of return on time — return on individual time, return
on team time, return on the organization’s time,” Tichy said.
Welch,
during his 20 years at the helm of GE from 1981-2001, developed an elaborate
year-long calendar that included quarterly off-site two-day meetings of the top
30 GE executives, an annual gathering of the top 300 leaders and rigorous
follow-up via company surveys to ensure that everyone in the company knew the
goals and strategies, and what was expected of them in terms of execution.
“Mulally
did it his own way at Ford,” Tichy said, “and now Mark’s got to think it
through for himself. He may keep 80% of what Mulally put in place, he may
change a few things, but it’s got to be his agenda.”
And
the world will be watching every move.
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