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• The Wisdom of the Car Buying Masses

This is an open letter to you, Bob Nardelli, CEO:

As the hired Chief Hatchet Man for the hollow suits of Ceberus, your billonaire owners, I have a suggestion for you. It is time for your mid-life crisis. Recent events would suggest it has yet to hit you. Having recently endured one myself, a true mid-life crisis could help your company recapture it's soul.

Let me count the ways.

1) Don't throw other people's money at your problems. That means not spending your first few million on "thank you" ads for the bailout. That's what a middle aged guy might do. Once you hit middle age you become an expert at using other people's money. While its a shrewd approach, that doesn't make it right. 

2) Recognize you are not older and wiser, you're just older. Chrysler is actually well past middle age. Your company is just a freaking old fart with no economic justification for living. Everything it does can be done better and cheaper by someone else. So what you gonna do about it?  I'd say you should come off your high horse and get real scared about what you don't know.

3) Re-assess everthing you do know. This is is what a mid-life crisis produces. It's not that you have bad ideas (SRT products) it's just that you hold on to worthless ones (the rest of your product line). You will likely need to shed tons of weight in the process and change your training regimen. When I closed my Denver office, I moped for a few months about not being able train for mountains. It was not till I changed my training regimen that I realized that fixed training for a climb gives you really strong legs and not much else.

4) Recognize you are in crisis and need to change. Somewhere between the second and third point you develop a loneliness and longing for something else that is not in your life. Then you realize that Leadership is about looking instead of longing for a better way. Leading means seeing, then acting at the right time. It can get lonely, but its the only way.

Well, well, what do I know?

Only that from one guy to another, you got alotta changing to do.

Respectfully,

Chris Birt

Age 19