YouSaid · the spoken record

Gerald Johnson

lines on the record: 28
first: 2022-03-03
most recent: 2022-03-03
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“We know that we have a responsibility as General Motors to be a contributor and advocate for climate change, for EV as a part of that solution, for diversity, equity, inclusion, for everything that people look at that big general motors emblem. We carry that responsibility and the responsibility of all those that are connected to it, all the stakeholders, customers for sure, our employee in our workforces, absolutely. Our stockholders as well. Everyone has a stake in that. And I just want everyone to realize we understand it. We carry that proudly, but also humbly. And we're going to carry that into an all EV future.”
2022-03-03 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Make mistakes to make progress, w/GM's Gerald Johnson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It would be, but we would then have to adapt and find out why people aren't voting coming to our dealers and picking up our products. I'm not concerned about it. I see the future and I get to look behind the curtain a little more and all the information and everything that we're looking at tells us customers are going to appreciate what we do and they're going to vote and we'll be there to provide them with the vehicles that they need.”
2022-03-03 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Make mistakes to make progress, w/GM's Gerald Johnson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The biggest is not a goal. The biggest is an outcome. Our size is just a recognition from our customers that they appreciate and value what we do and what we provide. It's not the overarching beacon that's not a part of our mission statement or our vision statement. Our vision says zero, zero, zero. It doesn't say anything about being the biggest. It says about creating an environment or a community or society that doesn't have crashes, doesn't have emissions, and doesn't have congestion. Doesn't say about the biggest. Biggest is something that customers determine and we allow them to vote with their feet and with their dollars. And when they show up in our dealers to pick up our products.”
2022-03-03 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Make mistakes to make progress, w/GM's Gerald Johnson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We have a huge assignment as we've discussed. We have a vision of the future. We know that and believe in, first of all, the science of climate change. We've set the course for an all-electric future for our organization. We are designing and engineering and already starting to produce the vehicles that represents the first evidences of that course that we put in place. We have more facilities that have to make that turn and more people have to make that turn as well. Right now we're in for some what looks like a moment of uncertainty, but it's really just a moment of inflection. And I think as we start to see the hummer, the lyric, the Chevy Equinox come out, the Chevy EV Silverado, the GMCR, as we see this product line, I think everything will start to just buy its own momentum, begin to take shape.”
2022-03-03 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Make mistakes to make progress, w/GM's Gerald Johnson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Fav, great question, because they do help each other, by the way. It's really simple. One of the things that we talk about at our church, a motto, if you will. So, my team, we serve about 100,000 manufacturing people around the globe. I often remind my leadership team to remember that any day we wake up, if we make a dumb decision, it could affect the livelihood and well-being of a thousand people somewhere. And some lady is working on loading steering columns into a vehicle today who doesn't realize that I made a decision that three years from now is going to cost her. You have to carry that responsibility. And if you carry it well, that's an expression of love. So that helps me both ways. Now, from an executive standpoint, yeah, there's some things, quite frankly, in a church environment, you need to have better organization. You need to have better coordination and execution and all those things come to bear the other way as well. So again, it's an integration that I'm glad to participate in and allow both to flow and support each other.”
2022-03-03 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Make mistakes to make progress, w/GM's Gerald Johnson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm a part of one of the most satisfying things that I get to do is I get to participate in a program that General Motors Support called TutorMate. And that's where I get to sit down once a week with a second grader and help them learn to read. So my greatest fun right now was teaching young Sage, who's my student right now how to read.”
2022-03-03 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Make mistakes to make progress, w/GM's Gerald Johnson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't balance. I integrate. At any given time, nine o'clock in the morning, I may need to talk to one of my children and I find time to do that. And nine o'clock at night, I may need to talk to one of my plant managers and I find time to do that. I only have one calendar. I only have one life. There's only one me. I have to integrate family work, church, and other responsibilities that I have that you did mention. And you just build a calendar. But most importantly, I have a great team. I have a great team in General Motors and I have a great team at home with my wife Lynn and my kids. It's always something going on, but it's really fantastic because I hope it keeps me young, but it always keeps me energized. I used to kid people. I drank more coffee coming home to face my seven kids than going to work in the morning. They're all out of the house now, but that energy still is here. And now I just put that energy into the congregation that I serve or other initiatives that”
2022-03-03 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Make mistakes to make progress, w/GM's Gerald Johnson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So we're always still working on the next technology. That's being responsible. And so hydrogen fuel has its place somewhere in the future as well. I don't believe the last battery chemistry technology is with us yet. So there's still more to come. You have to stay at that edge so that you can see it and adapt it. It's not EV and done. It's EV now. It's EV and AV. It's hydrogen fuel cells. It's other things that are yet to come.”
2022-03-03 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Make mistakes to make progress, w/GM's Gerald Johnson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, business leaders of the future will make business decisions of the future. Our horizon is always 10 years out and beyond when we're talking as a leadership team at General Motors. And so many of the actions we put in place now are the actions that are going to actually set the stage for the next 10 to 15 years. We have a four-year horizon on vehicle pipeline from design idea to actually being out in the public. So we're already in the pipeline for vehicles that are going to show up in 2025 and 2026. And the architecture and converting my footprint, the manufacturing footprint, to be EV capable are all things that will be an advantage to those that follow us over the next two decades as we go to 2035 and 2040. When we change the entire footprint and make the entire footprint EV capable and we're doing that in this decade, quite frankly.”
2022-03-03 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Make mistakes to make progress, w/GM's Gerald Johnson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's what we're talking about making sure everyone can go on this journey with us and everyone can take advantage of the EV future, which is a great future from a sustainability standpoint and from a cost of ownership standpoint. Everyone should be able to benefit from the product portfolio that General Motors was putting together. And we want to make sure the infrastructure is there again for everyone to participate.”
2022-03-03 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Make mistakes to make progress, w/GM's Gerald Johnson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You nailed it on the head, Bob. That is connecting inclusivity with sustainability. The fun was set up so that we could start having conversations about how we don't move to an EV future and leave certain communities behind. Your early question about living in an urban environment, how do you charge a vehicle? It's very different than living in a suburb where you have a garage to do in it. We didn't want to leave segments of our communities behind. Our statement is everyone in EV, everyone in because we want everyone to go on this journey and we don't want to leave urban communities behind or communities of color, which tend to also coincide with urban communities behind in this whole EV future that we're creating.”
2022-03-03 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Make mistakes to make progress, w/GM's Gerald Johnson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't think it's just business leaders. I think it's people whether we're talking at whatever level of the organization or whatever role, it's a topic that's uncomfortable sometimes if you haven't had the conversation before. Imagine, I don't know if you have children, but the first time you want to talk to your children about sex, it's uncomfortable. You haven't had those conversations, you avoided them until you couldn't. And then you had to have them. And so this is one of those times where we have to have conversations around diversity. We have to have conversations around equity and inclusion. And what does that mean to those who felt excluded? And how do we bring everyone in so that we can get the benefit of an inclusive, collaborative, engaged workforce doing great things for our customers?”
2022-03-03 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Make mistakes to make progress, w/GM's Gerald Johnson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Sure. First thing is, of course, there's mistakes, and you should be comfortable with the fact that there are. If you're not making mistakes, you're not making progress. This is supposed to be awkward and uncomfortable. Neurologists tell us that when we're doing something awkward and uncomfortable is when we're learning the most. We have a lot to learn in this space. So we have to be uncomfortable and we have to be awkward and we have to challenge and question things that we maybe once walk by and ignored or didn't even take note of because we didn't realize that that statement had microaggressions attached to it or that that statement was offensive or exclusive in some form or fashion. These are the things I would encourage business leaders to invite the conversations that are uncomfortable and then do the work that's also uncomfortable because that's how we make progress.”
2022-03-03 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Make mistakes to make progress, w/GM's Gerald Johnson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Much more easily today than they did in the past. And that's one of the key differences. But I think it also shows up in understanding. And quite frankly, it shows up in our engagement surveys where we ask our employees about their engagement, how comfortable they feel about being themselves at work. And those survey numbers are continuing to go up over the last couple years because I think of these open conversations and the work that we're doing to make diversity a part of our priority. It's now part of one of our behaviors in General Motors be inclusive.”
2022-03-03 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Make mistakes to make progress, w/GM's Gerald Johnson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely. The feedback from our employees about the difference is the openness with which we can discuss sometimes awkward and difficult topics. The openness in which we discuss diversity in the most broadest sense, whether we're talking ethnicity, race, religion, gender, all these ideas and perspectives of diversity are now bubbling up and we can have conversations, which means we can have understanding, which means we can make intelligent change. One of the first things we did as we began to reinitiate our focus around diversity is we just had listening sessions. We pulled groups of diverse people together and said, let's talk about it, help us understand what it feels like to be a black man in this environment, in this situation, given what's going on. Tell me how it feels to be part of the LGBTQ community in this environment. And so those conversations are happening.”
2022-03-03 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Make mistakes to make progress, w/GM's Gerald Johnson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Mention we stand very proud of the fact that we have a female CEO leading our organization who's, of course, I think an icon of both diversity and great leadership.”
2022-03-03 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Make mistakes to make progress, w/GM's Gerald Johnson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's still early, to be honest with you, for me to judge it, but I've been surprised, happily surprised by the types of organizations that we've been able to find and support, including the 110 effort. We are part of that as well, because we want to, again, be a part of something that's continuing and not just something that's momentary. My concern, which I think is also inside your question, is will we lose energy? Will the momentum somehow wane as a society? We also as the IAB talk about where we're at inside a General Motors, and we use the IAB as outside eyes and input to make sure that our plans to become the most inclusive company in the world are sound, solid, and reflect all the best ideas. What is our strategy? How do we grow diversity inside our organization? How do we grow equity? How do we define and grow inclusion? Not to.”
2022-03-03 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Make mistakes to make progress, w/GM's Gerald Johnson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But that's not enough because that has a peak and a wane to it. Our IAB is designed to make sure that we continuously stay in the forefront and if you will in the fight for diversity, equity, and inclusion, not only inside of General Motors, which is our first responsibility, but also where we do business. We want to affect not only our own organization, but the communities where we do business. So the IB has directed monies that General Motors has put into the control of the IAB to fund various diversity efforts very conscientiously and intentionally. It's our commitment to the long-term journey of diversity, equity, and inclusion and not the momentary emotion of one event, one moment, one check.”
2022-03-03 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Make mistakes to make progress, w/GM's Gerald Johnson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“One of the reasons we created the IAB, the Inclusion Advisory Board, is to make sure the actions we took in the wake of the George Floyd murder were sustainable. Sometimes some organizations will write a check and God bless them, the check can go to do wonderful things, I hope.”
2022-03-03 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Make mistakes to make progress, w/GM's Gerald Johnson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Manufacturing is a base skill and capability that's important to every economy, including this U.S. economy. And it's important not only when you need ventilators, but it's important when you need anything. It's my hope that others will gain a better appreciation of the need and the value, but it's also my desire to be a voice for the hundred thousand global manufacturing people in my organization about the value of the work that they do.”
2022-03-03 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Make mistakes to make progress, w/GM's Gerald Johnson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, for sure, you can't manufacture anything virtually. It takes someone to take a piece and put it with another piece and attach it via wells or screws. And I'll go back to ventilator speed. If we don't have people who have those skills, we don't have 30,000 ventilators going to hospitals all over the United States to save lives. Manufacturing capability in this country is ever more important. I think it became evident through this pandemic, and I'm really appreciative of the thousands of people who do this work and understand how to do this work. I call them industrial problem solvers and industrial athletes because the work does take a certain amount of manual coordination, but also they have to solve problems as they arise every 60 seconds in some cases through our shops.”
2022-03-03 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Make mistakes to make progress, w/GM's Gerald Johnson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So it's a mixture of both. For manufacturing, it's a lot of bringing our workforce along and upscaling them as we do with every program. It's always about introducing new people because we're hiring thousands of people every year to backfill or to fund our growth strategy. But also we have a heightened level of software capability and technology that we're introducing in these vehicles. So from an engineering standpoint, we need more software engineers than we have had in the past. And then back in manufacturing, because we are automating, we're always introducing technology in our processing. We also need electromechanical engineering and technical skills added to our workforce as we go down this path. So it's a little bit of both. It's upskilling. It's some new skilling in engineering. It's bringing a whole nother wing of engineering technology into what they've done for many years.”
2022-03-03 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Make mistakes to make progress, w/GM's Gerald Johnson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's not about doing it old ways, it's about knowing how to do it right ways. We have history of standardized work that allows us to have confidence in the quality of the vehicles that we produce. We have quality performance that reinforces that point.”
2022-03-03 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Make mistakes to make progress, w/GM's Gerald Johnson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Platform into that process. Training our people as we've already proven we can do with our Bolt EV and our Bolt EUV and our Orient facility today. We know how to bring that trending along for the rest of our facilities when that program shows up.”
2022-03-03 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Make mistakes to make progress, w/GM's Gerald Johnson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, first of all, I believe that our workforce is not a legacy. Our workforce is an advantage. We have over a million years of automotive, building, manufacturing capability. We have to bring over 30,000 parts together in one facility. We have to make sure that we download software properly and that we automate and process these vehicles with safety and quality in mind. And we've got 45,000 people skilled at doing that in the US. So bringing them along is the same as we have been in the sense that we always have a retraining when we bring a new vehicle into a plant. The EV will be likewise. Now, mind you, 80% of an EV vehicle is the same. It has doors, deck lids, seats, dash, all that componentry. We just have to introduce that 20%, which is the EV battery and battery chassis, the ultimate.”
2022-03-03 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Make mistakes to make progress, w/GM's Gerald Johnson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You'll go to a dealer sponsored location. Now the dealers will determine where their footprint to place these charge units. You'll have those options. You'll have parking options. Yes, but you'll have options to go and have your vehicle charged in an urban environment where, again, you can't utilize your own garage.”
2022-03-03 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Make mistakes to make progress, w/GM's Gerald Johnson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And we're going to change that. We're going to lever our dealer networks, which quite frankly cover large populations in Radii because that's their footprint. And we've already supported them with EV charging investments as well. And then, of course, we have an urban strategy as well that will bring EVs to parking structures, et cetera. So we realized that not everyone will have a charger in their garage. A lot will, but you have to lay out an EV structure to make it as simple as it is to pump gas today.”
2022-03-03 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Make mistakes to make progress, w/GM's Gerald Johnson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So it's an entire ecosystem that has to move and shift. Again, we believe in all EV future. That requires a course for us to design beautiful products, put a great battery in them, give the customers the range, functionality, and beauty that they deserve. Prepare our dealer network to be able to service and support, to prepare a supply base to come along with us and shift to the new component sets to develop new software because these vehicles will have heightened software capability that allows them to be upgraded as they age. And so we're pulling an entire ecosystem together. We are also investing in infrastructure. We invested $750 million into making charging available. So we have to bring the whole ecosystem along to do scale and to take what we currently have in the industry of around 3.6, 3.9 million units and convert all that volume into EV.”
2022-03-03 · Masters of Scale · Rapid Response: Make mistakes to make progress, w/GM's Gerald Johnson · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT