Women Executives Leaving the Big 3 Automakers: Is This a Symptom of the Bigger Problem(s)?
Anne Doyle, formerly the director of communications at Ford, published a column this week in Automotive News
(the subscription-based publication that everyone who works in "the industry" reads) warning that the exodus of women in high-ranking positions at the domestic automakers is a problem that ought to be taken seriously... as seriously as the Big 3's struggles to build cars that can compete with the import brands. She cites a dozen female executives who have left Ford over the last 6 years and a handful each from GM and DaimlerChrysler.
Snippet: For a long time, we've heard the statistics: Women today account for about half of new-vehicle purchases and influence up to 80 percent of them...
Yet talented women have been leaving Ford, General Motors and the Chrysler group in numbers too large to ignore. Most have left for better opportunities outside the industry after years of frustration in rigid, old-school work cultures and lack of advancement.
Reading her column left me with a mix of feelings. Of course, it's a shame that women have left these positions. At the same time, most of them were around during the late 1990s when the domestics put all their money on trucks/SUVs and got themselves into at least part of the mess they're in today. Do these female execs share some of the blame for being part of this machine? Or, is this evidence of the difficulty they faced while trying to maneuver within this century-old, male-dominated and positively unwieldy industry?
Doyle notes, "The most alarming indicator of the state of the domestic auto industry is not vehicle inventories, stock prices or health care costs. It's the talent drain."
Maybe, but when you're in the business of selling cars, shouldn't the greatest cause for alarm be the realization that you're not building cars people want to buy? And, no, I'm not just making the usual argument that domestic carmakers aren't focusing on the right vehicle segments. I'm making the argument that none of them have succeeded at building true rivals for cars like the Honda Civic, Honda Accord, Toyota Camry, Volkswagen Passat and BMW 3 Series. It's not enough simply to match them dimension for dimension and feature for feature. You need to spend the money to match their driving dynamic, materials quality and out and out refinement. That's what women want. Or at least that's what this woman wants. And if the departure of these female execs has diminished the likelihood that this viewpoint will ever be taken seriously, well now that is a shame.
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- Erin Riches October 27, 2006, 11:21 PM
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Indeed. Automakers such as GM are sponsoring mentoring programs and internships to lure more female engineers with the intention of building more female-friendly cars (among others reasons). But if carmakers can't keep women at the top, where should the new influx of women look for inspiration and career development?
Frankly, I think the outflux of women might be symptomatic of something more than just a return to the macho standards of old: Smart women know a sinking ship when they're on one. And since there's no reward for loyalty nowadays, they're getting while the getting is good.
What's disappointing, in a way, as that these women have chosen to completely leave the auto field. I would have rather seen them go to the imports brands, at least to keep their experience and knowlege within the industry. But the Japanese and European brands are reputed to be even less friendly to women than the domenstics.