In a letter titled "GM's Commitment to the American People," the automaker apologized for past blunders in a full-page ad in yesterday's
Automotive News. It kind of says what outsiders have
been saying for some time.
"While we're still the U.S. sales leader, we acknowledge we have disappointed you," the ads states. "At times we violated your trust by letting our quality fall
below industry standards and our designs become lackluster. We have proliferated our brands and dealer network to the point where we lost adequate focus on our core U.S. market. We also biased our
product mix toward pick-up trucks and SUVs. And, we made commitments to compensation plans that have proven to be unsustainable in today's globally competitive industry."
Step one on the
road to recovery, as the
Post's Kendra Marr points out, is admitting you have a problem. The question is whether cirrhosis has already set in.
"I find it bizarre," says longtime
industry analyst Maryann Keller. "Why are you spending money on this? What a pointless exercise." But Jack Trout says GM's request for forgiveness and promise to improve is a classic execution of the
"Law of Candor." "You admit a negative as a way of setting up a positive," Trout says. "It's not enough to say 'I screwed up.' You want to say 'I screwed up but here's the good that's going to come
out of it.' "
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