实话实说：车界老兵点评六大CEO

菲利浦•考德威尔

1980年至1985年间任福特CEO

卢茨说：“他很难让人喜欢，几乎没有任何幽默感，但他因为对质量和对产品精益求精的专注而获得了人们的尊敬。”

卢茨的打分：241

    虽然我与菲尔•考德威尔共处过很长时间，其中既包括与很多人在一起，也有很多我与他独处的时间，但是只要有他出现，那种不舒服的感觉就从来没离开过。菲尔是个滴酒不沾的人。无论是红酒、白酒、啤酒、咖啡，还是茶，他都不喝。后来我也习惯了他的这个癖好。每次服务员问他要什么餐前酒，他总是拒绝。而且他总是对我说：“如果你想喝，你就点吧。”结果是我也不想喝了，因为我不想让他觉得我是个酒鬼。

    菲尔从来不会在讨论中认输。有一次我为一个新皮卡项目准备了两个小时的产品演示。但是菲尔对细节永远不会满足，而且他显然需要让大家把他看作是商用汽车领域的一个大行家。我根本没办法完完整整地做完演示，总是不停地被他打断。菲尔一层一层地挖掘我当时还算相当丰富的知识储备，问我们到底要怎么做，为什么这样做，针对的目标是谁，不停地抛出越来越刁钻的问题。最后有人提醒我们预订的吃饭时间到了。菲尔才意犹未尽地宣告休战，还说还要另找时间继续这场重要的谈话（不过并没有发生）。

    有些人可能觉得，像小说《凯恩号哗变》那样把菲尔“逼宫”下台也许是个不错的选择，因为菲尔的性格很像《凯恩号哗变》里的奎格船长：性子小气，特别在乎个人威望，不在乎下属，在商业判断上爱出昏招。但是这可能是个错误的结论。尽管他缺乏实际操作经验，也缺乏当“造车人”的兴趣和技术，而且总是喜欢用更多的数据来佐证很明显的逻辑决策，但是菲尔有很强的目的感，就是要让福特变成全世界的质量领导者。这个优点掩盖了他的很多怪癖和弱点。可以说他游走在强迫症的边缘。但是在质量问题上，只有一个强迫型的人格才能催生一个“没有人是完美的”的企业文化。

Ford CEO 1980-85

    Lutz says: "Hard to like and deprived of nearly any sense of humor, he gained respect for his focus on quality and product excellence."

Lutz grade: 241

    Despite spending much time with Phil Caldwell, in groups as well as one-on-one, the feeling of unease in his presence never left me. Phil was a teetotaler. No wine, spirits, beer, coffee, or tea. I got used to his disdain for alcohol. Whenever the server asked about a predinner cocktail, Phil always demurred. His answer, unfailingly, was "Go right ahead if you feel you need it." The effect was that I no longer wanted to drink, since I didn't want to appear an addict.

    Phil was not one to throw in the towel in discussions. Once I delivered a two-hour presentation on a new truck program. We had not counted on Phil's near insatiable appetite for detail, as well as his manifest need to be perceived as a major expert in the commercial vehicle field. I couldn't get through the presentation, being constantly stopped. Phil drilled through stratum upon stratum of my then-considerable knowledge of what we were doing, why, and against whom, relentlessly bombarding me with ever more arcane questions. Finally, there was a reminder we had a dinner reservation. Phil Caldwell reluctantly declared a truce and said we would continue this vital dialogue some other time (which never came).

    It would be tempting to dismiss Caldwell as a sort of corporate Captain Queeg: petty, focused on personal prestige, uncaring about his subordinates, and given to poor business judgment. [But] that would be the wrong conclusion. While lacking any real operational or "car guy" interests or skills, and being overly passionate about getting more data to support eminently logical decisions, Caldwell had one powerful sense of purpose that overrode his many quirks and foibles: He was totally focused onmaking Ford (F, Fortune 500) the quality leader of the world. He teetered on obsession. But when it came to quality, it took an obsessive personality to energize a culture raised on "nobody's perfect."