programs online at booktv.org. >> next on booktv, bryce hoffman recounts ford motor company's business practices under ceo alan mulally from 2006 to 2011. mr. hoffman was given access to alan mulally's personal documents and interviewed over 100 people involved in the company's overhaul from executive chairman bill ford to the automotive company's employees, union heads and car dealers. this is about 45 minutes. [applause] >> thank you very much. thank you all for coming and thank you for watching, viewers at home. i just wanted to start out by talking a little bit ant how this book came about. i've been covering ford motor company for the detroit news since 2005, and from the beginning when i started covering ford, i knew that i was

really witnessing an incredible story. i didn't know how it was going to end, but i knew that what was happening here in dearborn was either the death of an american icon or its resurrection. and while i was privately rooting for the latter, i was going to write the story either way. so as i followed the day-to-day events of the turn around of ford for the detroit news, i also in the back of my mind was writing this book. and in 2010 when it became clear that ford had turned the corner and saved itself and done it without taking a taxpayer bailout, i might add, i approached bill ford jr., the chairman and ceo alan mulally with the proposal to write this book, um, and to tell the real story of ford's turn around. because i really felt that this was a great american story. and at a time when so many corporations have kind of, you know, gone to washington with their hands out and asked the american people to save them from their mistakes, here is at

least one company that had taken on its own problems, pulled itself up by its boot straps, you know, the way we're all taught things were supposed to work. and i thought it was a great example and kind of a different sort of story from a lot of the negative news we hear so much from the business world. but i also thought that there was a lot that other organizations, other companies, also other organizations could learn from the ford story. you know, what i had witnessed here in dearborn was really one of the most amazing transformations i've ever seen of any organization, and i think that america's ever seen. here, you know, taking a company that was really a company at war with itself and turning it into really a model of teamwork and efficiency and really kind of proving to the world that at least one american company could kind of pick itself up and compete with the best in the world and win. so, you know, i made the pitch that the best way to tell the story was if they would let me tell it wart and all.

wart and all. i asked for access to the company, to all of its executives, board members, company documents. and to their credit, ford understood that. i told them, i said, i won't give you any say in how this book comes out, but i think we all know it's a fundamentally positive story, and i just think it's that much stronger if you let me tell it in its entirety. and can they got that, and they kind of let me get inside the glass house to see how that all amend. i can tell you even as someone who had spent the past seven years of his life following ford every day, i learned a lot. there was a lot that happened behind the scenes that nobody knew about. there was a lot that happened behind the scenes that even people in the company when they heard about it were surprised about. and that's really what i try to get to in "american icon." so i thought that, um, i would start just by talking a little bit about how i went about

researching this book because it was a little bit of an unorthodox process. you know, most of the people who were central players in this story still work for ford motor company, and i wanted them to be able to speak candidly to me about the struggles that they went through to safe this company -- to stave this company. and so i made the same deal with everybody from bill ford jr. to people i talked to on the factory floor, and that was this: everything, you know, anything we talk about can be used in this book, but i won't identify the names of anybody whose source it was. the only time that i will directly quote from people is when i'm reconstructing conversations that happened, and that will only be when i am able to talk to one of the people with direct knowledge of those conversations. and that was kind of the ground rules. and that allowed most people to kind of feel like they could open up a little bit more than if they were talking to me as a newspaper reporter and kind of anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law with your name attached to

it. and the other thing was there's one point where i broke from that, and that's in the final chapter in this book. i had one interview with alan mulally where i asked him to do it on the record, so to speak, because i wanted him to be able to speak to you directly, speak to the reader directly about what he experienced, what he learned and what he thought the big learnings of ford's turn around were. so that was the one exception to that. um, and i guess what i'd like to do is just kind of for people who haven't read the book, um, just kind of go through some of the different high points in the ford story to give people an idea and talk a little bit about why i think these were important. so i'm going to start at the very beginning, if you will. which is, um, i think, an important point that i wanted to make, i didn't want to dwell too much on ford's history because a lot of books have been written about the history of ford motor company and henry ford.

but i thought it was important to make a point about ford, and that was that ford was not the same as general motors and chrysler. it had some unique issues. and so just really briefly, i'd just like to read the opening paragraph of the book which kind of just addresses those in a nutshell. while many of ford motor company's problems were shared by the rest of detroit, the dearborn automaker also faced some challenges all its own. ford's woes had not begun with the arrival of the japanese in the 1960s or the oil crises of the 1970s. the company had been struggling with itself since henry ford started it on june 16, 1903. it invested massively in game-changing products and then did nothing to keep them competitive. it allowed cults of personality to form around larger-than-life leaders but drove away the talent needed to support them. and it allowed a caustic corporate culture to eat away at the company from the inside. these were the birth defects that could be traced back to the

automaker's earliest days. henry ford liked to boast that he had created the modern world. in many ways he had, but he had also created a company that was its own worst enemy. and i think anybody who's worked at ford or spent time at the company in the years before its recent turn around knows just how true that is. i mean, this is -- as i go on to describe, this was a company where, you know, time after time going back to the days of the model t, they really hit the ball out of the park with one product, you know? and then they just didn't invest in that product. they just didn't, they didn't keep it competitive, and they got passed by other automakers. they did that with the model t, with the ford taurus in the 1980s. it was also a company where there was just really rampant careerism, where people put their own careers ahead of what was best for ford and the bottom line and let alone the customer. and, you know, some of the stories that i talk about in here that i heard as i was researching this book just kind

of boggle the mind. i mean, there was a decision made at one point a few years ago about a product that was being designed for the asian market, a small car that was very competitive and actually ended up becoming the fiesta that's on sale today, and it was originally designed so that it couldn't be sold in the u.s. because the person who was in charge of that decision at the time didn't want the u.s. division to be able to get the benefits of that, you know, because they were competing for whose division was going to be the best. so it was a company that wasn't just competing with toyota or general motors, it was competing with itself. and, obviously, as a lot of people here in the shadow of ford's world headquarters know, it was a company that by the middle of the 2000s was really headed down, down tubes. and one of the things i discovered, you know, working on this book was just how serious the situation had had become. i mean, you know, by the summer of 2006 the board was actively

looking at bankruptcy, they were looking at parting out the company, there were private equity firms kind of circling around dearborn like vultures, you know, trying to pick off parts of ford. the family looked at taking it private at one point, and nothing seemed to be working. bill ford had really tried to turn things around, but he just couldn't cut through this culture that was so entrenched in dearborn. and be so in july of 2006 there was a pivotal board meeting in which bill agreed to step aside and make room for someone else to take over. and as he said which i talk about in the book -- which is really a moving statement -- he said i have a lot invested in this company, but the one thing i don't have informed in it -- invested in it is my ego. so he stepped aside, and they began a search for someone who could save the company. and as i talked about, they had already tried to recruit carlos gohn, they tried to recruit

dr. z, and they'd been turned down. so they looked outside the auto industry, and the guy whose name was at the top of their list was alan mulally. and so i'm just going to read a little bit about mulally and where he was coming from. as the head of the boeing company's commercial airplanes group, alan mulally had spent the last ten years fending off one disaster after another while somehow managing to transform its divisive culture into a model of corporate collaboration. boeing had survived an unrelenting assault by europe's air bus industry and the collapse of sales that followed the terrorist attacks on new york and washington, d.c. in 2001. mulally turned what could have been a fatal blow to the aerospace giant into an opportunity to fundamentally transform the company into a liner, more -- leaner, more profitable enterprise. it was well on its way to record sales, revenue and earnings.

mulally credited it to a team-based approach, and he had learned many of its principles from ford motor company. mulally's success at boeing was already making him something of a corporate celebrity, but he hardly acted the part. he looked like an older version of richie cunningham which people in the room who have seen him probably know exactly what i mean. [laughter] the wholesome protagonist on the television sitcom "happy days." he had the same reddish-blond hair and the same gee whiz grin, only mulally suggested he knew more than what was going on, it was the only hint there was something more to him than his demeanor suggested. it was as though he had an ace up his sleeve. otherwise he came off like an overgrown boy scout, seasoning his conversation with words like neat, cool and absolutely. while most high-level executives favored tailored suits, mulally's trademark couture was

a red windbreaker. his idea of dressing up was a blue blazer and tie. he used a cheap, retractable ballpoint that he could buy by the box. the seattle times called him mr. nice guy. mulally's lack of pretension was evident in his dealing with other people. at formal events he showed little interest in the rich and powerful, preferring to mingle with those less interested in comparing resumés. he asked more questions than he answered and seemed genuinely interested in what people had to say, be they world leaders or waitresses. mulally made a point of remembering something about everyone he met and would often astonish underlings by recalling some scrap of information they had shared with him. he was also big on hugs and had even been known to plant pecks on the cheeks of both men and women. all of this made mulally adored by subordinates, it also kept his rivals off balance. they could never quite figure

out how much of it was an act, and mulally liked to keep it that way. so bill ford brought mulally here to michigan, and i just want to read a little bit about their first meeting. on saturday, july 29, 2006, ford sent a gulfstream v to pick up mulally in seattle. he pored over the thick file of data he had collected on the company. the research he had been doing on ford since that first phone call had generated a myriad of questions, and he was about to meet the man he hoped could answer most of them. mulally began writing out his questions. the plane landed at willow run airport which had been built by ford during world war ii when the company was in the bomber business. when mulally stuck his head out, he found a driver waiting for him next to a ford expedition. the man took his bag and opened the rear door, but mulally climbed into the prong passenger

seat. as the big sport utility vehicle navigated the winding roads, mulally found himself growing excited. he tried to temper his enthusiasm. i'm just here to gather information, mulally reminded himself, i'm not deciding anything. they pulled up to bill ford's gate at noon. mulally admired the leafy estate. he recognized that he was in the domain of the truly rich, but as the expedition pulled up to the front door, he was surprised to see the lord of the manor emerge in shorts and a polo shirt. mulally surprised the fords by greeting them with big hugs. the two men sat down on couches and started with football. they both new the ceo of the seattle seahawks, but they soon got down to business, down to the business of the business itself. ford started by outlining the history of his company from its found being by henry ford through the heady days of hank the deuce to the debacle that

was jack nasser, culminating in his own frustrated efforts to save it. he talked about the competitive landscape, railing against toyota which he accused of working with the japanese government to manipulate the yen in order to boost exports and other devious practices. he told mulally that the upcoming 2007 contract negotiations with the united auto workers would be critical to the company's survival and outlined the concessions he hoped to wrest; wage cuts, more competitive work rules and an end to the jobs bank where idle workers collected benefits for years. if ford could not get these concessions, it might have to move most of its production to mexico. mulally seemed hooked. clearly, there were a lot of challenges, and he had a lot of questions that needed answering before he would consider taking charge, but here was a chance to fight for the very soul of american manufacturing. if i'm going to do this, i'm going to need to know everything, he thought. so mulally began his

interrogation. why are there so many brands? why is this -- what is the strength of the dealer network? why all these different regional organizations? why haven't you been leveraging your global assets? ford was a little taken aback by mulally's intensity, but he answered every question. he told mulally about nasser's dream of building a house of brands. he acknowledged there were too many dealers, and he told mulally about his own push to globalize product development. until we do that, nothing else is going to work, ford said. our costs are going to be too high. we're just going to fall further and further behind. why haven't you done it already, mulally asked? ford explained that he wanted to but was getting pushback from his executives who saw it as a threat to their own regional fiefdoms. if mull mulally took the job, he would have to overcome that resistance. that will be the enabler to get everything else done, ford told him. if you can't do that, if we can't get that, we'll just be

whistling past the graveyard. the internal politics troubled mulally. he asked ford for more details. ford sketched out the company's organizational structure in black pen. family tree of sorts that listed the head of each division and showed who reported to who. the operating people are on quick sand, ford told mulally, i need help. mulally had realized that ford's problems were serious but did not know they were this bad. bill ford was clearly in over his head, and he did not try to conceal it. mulally was moved by his self-awareness and candor. if automaker still had a chance to save itself, this was its last. but as they, as the two men met, and i talk about this more in the book, mulally couldn't stop himself from using the word "we." he kept saying this is what we need to do to fix the company. how about if we do this. and by the end of this first meeting with bill ford, he was hooked. he really wanted to come to

dearborn and try to save ford. and there was a lot of wrangling back and forth to get him here, because he also wanted to stay at boeing. but in the end, as we know, he came to dearborn. and i want to jump forward and talk a little bit about mulally's first day at world headquarters here. at 2:20 p.m., they finally pulled into the garage like a smuggler, his eyes darting down the rows of jaguars and land rovers that were the preferred rides of ford's executives to make sure none of them were around. mulally noted the lack of fords and lincolns. bill ford was waiting when they pulled up. he was a little surprised to see his new ceo emerge from the land rover wearing a blue blazer and a butten-down shirt and yellow tie. this was dearborn, michigan, men still wore suits to work here as ford's own ably demonstrated. but mulally was about to establish a new normal.

he was wearing what would soon be recognized as his customary uniform. he might mix it up with a white shirt and red tie, maybe even gray trousers, but mulally would not put on a suit even when he visited the white house. waiting next to bill ford was cairn hampton -- karen hampton, mulally's media handler and miner. she slapped a blue oval pen on his lapel. once again mulally was overcome by a sense of history and felt a lump in his throat as he surveyed the model ts, mustangs and other vintage fords. he smiled as he passed a portrait of henry ford. curious employees walked by wondering who the grinning guy was posing with bill ford. when they were done, the group hurried into the executive elevator. mulally followed ford into his office which occupied the northeast corner. he pointed to mulally's own office just a few steps away. the two suites were separated only by a waiting room.

i'll be right here when you need me, ford said. the company's senior executives were crammed into bill ford's private conference room. the overseas chiefs were listening in on speakerphones. at 3:30 p.m., ford and mulally walked in, and the room fell silent. ford explained that he was resigning as ceo and introduced mulally as ford's new chief executive. as he talked, all eyes were on mulally. he did his best to smile back despite the growing intensity of their stares. he had never felt so scrutinized. mulally thought about shouting, boo, and then telling the serious-looking executives, don't worry, it's going to be okay. but he restrained himself. mark fields eyed mulally's outfit. he's here to meet the press, and he's wearing a sports coat, the dapper executive thought acidly. well, this is going to be different. fields' first impression of mulally was that he was a little bit corny, and he was not the only one.

mulally's farm boy nearby surprised many in the room. he doesn't look like he'll be a hammer. he'd gotten the news that morning and googled mulally before heading over to bill ford's conference room. banister was hoping for somebody with a bit more gravitas. he was fed up with the infighting and thinking of quitting. he liked mulally, but wondered if he was tough enough. mulally seemed more like a politician to mark schultz who was put off by his back slapping and arm squeezing. why did you leave boeing, he asked? this is an opportunity for me to help an american icon, mulally replied. at least one person rolled their eyes. ford senior executives were products of a cutthroat corporate culture. they were customed to smiling at the new king even as they plotted his demise. mulally's very presence testified to the fact that bill ford had lost all confidence in his own management team. it did not take long for someone to note that mulally knew nothing about the automobile

industry. we appreciate you coming here from a company like boeing, but you've got to realize that this is a very, very cap capital-intensive business, ford's chief technical officer, richard perry jones. the average car is made up of thousands of different parts, and they have to work together flawlessly. that's really interesting, mulally replied with a smile. the typical passenger jet has four million parts, and if just one of them fails, the whole thing falls out of the sky, so i feel pretty comfortable with this. that shut them up, but mulally got the message. they don't believe i can do this, he realized. i need to convince them i've got this. and that was really not just the case at ford, but that was the case at gm and chrysler. i remember there was a lot of jokes in town, are we going to see the return of cars with tail fins, flying cars and there was a lot of skepticism. the key, the key to mulally's turn around of ford, um, was

really changing the way that the company operated at the top. and the way that he got through kind of all the nonsense and all the on if fuss case and got at the facts was by these kind of famous, now, thursday morning meetings where he made all of the executives come together, sit around a big, round table and go over all the information about the company's operations, um, every week. and it was all color-coded. green meant everything was fine, yellow meant something might be in trouble and can red meant there was a problem. and there was not going to be any debate about whose fault it was or why it was this way. they would discuss how to fix it later. this was just to make sure that everybody knew what was going on so that they could fix it. and, um, the problem was is that once they learned how to do it, for the next few weeks all the slides were green. everything seemed to be fine. and yet mulally knew that ford was still losing billions and billions of dollars. so finally after a few weeks of

these meetings, um, mulally asked everybody what, isn't there anything going wrong at this company? i mean, we're going to lose billions of dollars this year. something can't be right. so the next meeting was really a pivotal point. because after that, after that, um, mark fields, the head of ford's american division, decided he was going to take a chance with honesty. [laughter] at the time a lot of people thought that mark fields was going to be out pretty quickly. so, um, the glass house was rife with rumors of his impending demise. he was the most obvious threat to the new ceo, so it'd be only natural for mulally to take him out. that was how things had been done in dearborn for as long as anyone could remember. those thoughts were weighing heavily on fields' mind.

when he got to the one showing the status of the north american product programs, he paused. as usual, they were all green. he stared at the line for the new ford edge which was due to launch in just a few weeks. production had already begun at the company's factory in oakville, ontario, but there was a problem. the day before fields had received a call from benny fowler, ford's quality chief. his people had already signed off on the edge certifying it was okay to begin shipping the cars to dealers. the first ones were already being loaded onto the train in canada as they spoke. now fowler informed fields that a test driver had reported a grinding noise coming from the us pension. technicians had examined the vehicle but were unable to figure out what was causing the problem. we don't know what it is, fowler told fields, but we node to hold -- we need to hold the cars until we find out. the first true crossover aimed scary at the heart of the industry's hottest new segment. it might bring down the wrath of

the new ceo. then again, shipping a vehicle with a potentially serious problem was certain to do that. it was the end of the year, the time when ford executives traditionally pulled out all the stops and cut whatever corners might be necessary to hit their sales targets, be -- but that was the old ford. mulally made it clear he did not want any vehicles shipped that were not ready. okay, let's hold the launch, told fowler. i don't like it, but i want to be safe. fields now faced an even tougher decision. it was one thing to delay a launch, telling everyone about it in the next thursday meeting was something else entirely. before mulally it would have been like throwing chum into shark-infested waters. fields' colleagues would have ripped him to shreds. besides, maybe the noise would turn out to be nothing, and the new crossovers would be on their way to showrooms, but then again maybe not. late that wednesday fields was going over his slides with his new head of manufacturing, joe

hendricks, when the product program slide popped up on the screen, hendricks looked stunned. are you sure you want to show that, hendricks asked? joe, is it red? yes. well, then we're going to call it like it is. as his turn approached the next day, fields figured he had about a 50/50 chance of walking out of the room with his job. by now he assume thereed there a good chance he was going to lose it anyway. he studied mulally trying to divine his mood. if i go out, it might as well be in a blade of glory. fields began his overview of the business environment in the americas. he called for the slide showing the region's financials, then there was one on the product programs. fields tried to be nonchalant. and on the ford edge, we're in red. you can see it there, we're holding the launch. there was dead silence. everyone turned towards fields. so did mulally who was sitting

next to him. dead man walking, thought one of his peers. i wonder who'll get the americas, mused another. suddenly, someone started clapping. it was mulally. mark, that is great visibility, he beamed. who can help mark with this? benny fowler raised his hand. he said he would send some of his quality experts to oakville right away. tony brown said he would contact all the relevant suppliers. now we're getting somewhere, mulally thought. mulally would later call this meeting the defining moment in ford's turn around. he had always believed he could save the ford motor company, now he knew he would. all he needed was a plan. and as many people know, he put his plan together on a little card, and it was really simple. it was aggressively restructure the company to profitably -- to operate profitably at the current demand, accelerate the development of new cars and trucks that people actually want, finance the plan and work together as a team.

and the rest of the book pretty much tells the story of how they did that and how they were able to use that to get through this recent crisis without taking a taxpayer bailout, without going, you know, and asking washington to fix their problems for them, doing it themselves the old-fashioned way. and that's "american icon." so -- [applause] thank you. with that, i'll take any questions anybody might have. >> with ford's, all the oems are trying to become global, and ford's efforts in asia pacific and south america and in europe, where do you see ford, what's your opinion, how are they when they stack them up to the other oems? >> well, you know, a big part of mulally's turn around strategy was bringing the company's global operations together which had really, ford had operated as

a separate company around the world almost since its founding, and now it's operating more as one company. there's a couple of problems. ford was really late to the game in asia, so they have a lot of ground to make up particularly in china which is going to pass the u.s. soon to become the biggest car market in the world. and europe has become a problem for all automakers, even the european automakers, because europe is in a lot of ways going through what the u.s. was going through a few years ago. the debt crisis there, their economy's collapsing, people are scared to buy cars and spend that much money, so ford is struggling with the rest of the industry this europe right now to, you know, hold its own there. but, you know, the thing is that i think it's important to recognize that all of ford's problems haven't gone away. but the problems that it's dealing with today are the problems that any company deals with in the course of doing business. it's not fighting for its life anymore. it's not dealing with the same problems that held it back for decades that never seem to be able to overcome it, and that's

really what's different now. >> i'd like to thank you for the little bit of irony that was in the beginning of the book regarding errest r. breach because ford brought breach in from frigidaire from general motors, and in breach's book -- let me back up. the irony is the aircraft industry because when breach left ford, he went to twa and put twa on the map. but when breach came to ford in this breach's book he quotes, he says it about himself, he says the best thing that happened to ford motor was the day they hired ernie r. breach. at mulally, does he ever suggest that the best thing that happened to ford motor was the day they hired alan mulally? >> i think he knows it. i mean, no question that if he hadn't come in, the company was going to go out of business.

but it's kind of funny because, you know, i think that one of the fundamental points i try to make in this book, and it's a bit of a paradox, is that ford wasn't saved just because a guy rode into town on a white horse. a lot of the things that mulally would do to save ford, to turn it around were plans other people had already come up with that they were trying to implement. but on the other hand, if he hadn't ridden into town on a white horse, ford wouldn't have been saved because those plans never would have come to fruition in the time ford had left. at one point when i was interviewing people for this book, i was talking with derek cusack, and, you know, he really had this whole kind of strategy for globalizing product development in place before mulally came on the scene. he just couldn't get anyone to really take him seriously and listen to this plan. but they had started down this road already. but i asked him, i said, derek, what would have happened if mulally hadn't shown up, you know? would you have made it, or would

you have run out of money first? and he was just quiet because, he said, i don't know. you know? so i think that, you know, i think that's how you have to look at it. anyone else? >> yeah. i'm a ford engineer. i'm really thankful that an engineer saved ford motor company and that he's not a bean counter. but i have two questions, if you could. what's your comment on the appropriateness of his compensation, and do you ask him why he didn't move his family here? >> sure. you know, it's funny that you talk about an engineer saving ford motor company. i remember the first time i ever interviewed alan at any length was about six weeks after he started, and he came to downtown detroit to meet with us at the detroit news. and i'll never forget as we were walking out after the interview, he said let me tell you something, he said, engineers are the source of all value creation in this company.

the bean counters don't create anything. got to keep that in mind. [laughter] i remember he was talking about how he was going to empower engineers which i'm sure you've experienced firsthand. um, but, you know, those are good questions. i mean, he is one of the highest-paid executives, he is the highest-paid executive in the auto industry, and i've asked him about that, you know? he believes that it's a testament to his value that he's contributed to the company. on the other hand, you know, a lot of people lost their jobs over this period of restructuring, as you know, and, you know, i think it's hard for some of those people to see him making so much money. you know, as far as moving his family here, you know, i think that's a good question. i mean, to be honest, though, you know, a seattle guy. he spent 30 years of his life at boeing, and when he's done here at ford, he's going to go back to seattle and retire because that's his home. but, you know, he knew he was

coming here to do a job, and when he's done, he's going home. anyone else? >> in your interviews with alan mulally knowing that he came from boeing and all that went on with boeing and that his previous boss is now in jail, was -- in your conversations with him did you ask or did he somehow indicate that he was upset with losing the top dog job at boeing? because he -- my understanding from reading 21st century jet about the 777 was that alan mulally really tried to fight for that job, and he kind of got set aside by condit. is that, is that a fair assessment? >> you know, i'll be honest. if you ask him that question, which i have, you know, he'll tell you that he's not, that he's just happy with how things have worked out, but i think he is. you know? everybody thought he was next in line to take over as the ceo of boeing, and the reason that he

didn't become the ceo of boeing is because in part because the former head of boeing who was his boss, he had nothing to do with, was involved in a corruption scandal with the pentagon, and the pentagon didn't want to have that cloud lingering over them, so they made a condition of future business with boeing being bring anything an outsider. but, yeah, i think that stung. i mean, this is a guy who, you know, everybody thought had saved the company, you know? and he didn't get the top job. and i think that if he had, obviously, he would still be there and not here in dearborn. so i think, you know, for the michigan economy i think it's a good thing he didn't. [laughter] anybody else? yeah. >> i had a quick question about, um, just alan's relationship with the detroit area and how he feels he's, like, i don't know, does he have heart in this area, or is it more in seattle?

because i'm, i've been, i've lived in both places. i grew up here, and i was born here, and then i lived in seattle and, you know, experienced the technology scene there, and i just see that area as being -- it should be very, you know, influential to detroit, but when you come here, i mean, there's just differences, and i can see why he would want to stay there if he lives or mercer island and has his kids in schools there. how does he somehow transfer some of that to the detroit area? have you talked to him about how he could do that? >> you know, i think it's clear that he came here to fix ford, not to fix detroit. and, you know, i think that he certainly sees that a stronger ford benefits the local area, but i mean, it's true. the reason he came here was to fix ford. anybody else or shall we -- oh, yeah. >> have you received any response from the ford management from mulally all the way down? >> i have. i've talked with pretty much

everybody in the book, and i would say that to sum it up, there's thiess one thing in the book that everybody cup like, but overall i think they think it does a pretty good job of telling the ford story. you know, it's uncomfortable to be under this sort of scrutiny, but, you know, as i've told all of the people that are talked about in this book, you know, i thought it was important to be honest and to look at this thing in its entirety. yeah. >> to piggyback on her question, what did bob king and ron gettelfinger think of the book? >> you know, i haven't heard from bob yet or ron, but the uaw is, obviously, a big part of this book. and what the uaw did with mulally to change the rules of the game and allow ford to build cars in this country profitably was really key to turning the company around and getting it to where it is today.

anybody -- >> just wait for the microphone there. [laughter] >> i was wondering, it was no surprise to people in the industry that the auto business was very inefficient and uncompetitive. and the fact that the government was able to turn general motors around so quickly, i think, is evidence of that because they brought in people in the investment business. why do you think -- do you have an opinion as to why it took so long for bill ford to find somebody that could handle the job? >> well, i think it's because i think it really did take an outsider to come in and really take a hard look at the problems that all of these companies were

facing. you know, the way i like to explain it to people is, and i know a lot of executives who tried to save ford and other companies beforehand, and it's like, you know, people were under the hood kind of, you know, tightening the belts and changing the spark plugs and things like that, but nobody believed you could just pull the engine out and rebuild it from top to bottom without killing the whole enterprise, but mulally didn't know you couldn't do that. he just saw it didn't work, and he was, like, well, we're just going to fix it then. i remember one of my first interviews with him, i asked him, you know, i said a lot of people in this town say what do you know about the car business, you build airplanes. why should people think you're going to be able to fix this? he said, you know, bryce, you're right. i don't know anything about how detroit works, but i know it doesn't work. and i think that was key. you know, and you talk about gm being saved, and the interesting thing is just as an anecdote is i talked to someone who was in a

meeting with the government's automobile task force in charge of saving gm and chrysler, and they went to a meeting there shortly after the government bailed out those companies. and on the wall in the meeting room was alan mulally's plan, basically, this card was on the wall. and they were using it as a road map for fixing gm and chrysler too. so in a lot of ways a lot of the learnings that came from ford's turn around were applied particularly to gm. and if you look at what gm is doing right now, a lot of it is doing exactly what was done at ford p -- ford. sure, one more. last question. >> i know you're saying about how ford, mulally came to ford to fix ford and not really detroit, but if you think about it, he really has to fix detroit as well, or he'll lose the capabilities that are in this area. i mean, if detroit's so close to this, you know, crucial

bankruptcy, you know hiring a city manager or whatever, you know, that deal is, doesn't he feel that if he were to lose that capability in detroit, that he would lose a lot of his technology and, you know, just engineering resources here that are so localized here? >> i think if you look at all the company, i think they want to see michigan be strong, and they want to see, you know, all of michigan be strong. i mean, not just detroit. ford doesn't really have a lot of operations actually in detroit. but the whole region as a whole, you know, needs to be strong to support these companies through education, through job training, you know, through right now there's a chronic shortage of engineers and things like that. you know, even getting people with the skills to work on the assembly lines, you know, these are not easy jobs that can be filled with people without the right training. and so, obviously, fixing the problems of southeast michigan and michigan as a whole are critical to the sustainability of the auto industry. i think that, i don't want to keep people who just want to get

their books signed waiting too long, so i think we'll stop it there but thank you, everyone, for your questions. thank you for coming, thank you for watching. [applause] >> you're watching 48 hours of nonfiction authors and books on c-span2's booktv. >> you know, for as important as this project has become to my life, i can scarcely remember the first time i learned about this historic congressional race between two future presidents in 1789. but what i do remember is reading about it in a book, and it was treated with the typical one or two sentences that you would see about this congressional race. and i thought to myself, way to bury the lead. all of a sudden, we're in this race between two future presidents, james madison, james monroe, they're debating the most important issues we've ever talked about as a country, whether we should have a bill of rights, what kind of union we

should have, and all of a sudden you're on the next page, and they're in the first congress. and i said, way to bury the lead. so i decided i would read everything i could about this 1789 election. and when i found that no one had ever written anything about it before, i decided i was going to tell this story. the book "founding rivals" opens at the the inauguration of george washington. when he took the oath of office, two of the 13 states were outside the union. north carolina and rhode island did not ratify the constitution because of their concern that it was missing a bill of rights, a guarantee of fundamental liberties. this was common for the anti-federalists throughout the con innocent. the common denominator among the anti-federalists, of which james monroe was one, was that they opposed the constitution. some of them genuine lin believe -- general binly believed you could not have a union that covered all these diverse states. they didn't think that any