Fields' Downfall at Ford: Weak Strategy

Critics say the downfall of Ford Motor Co. CEO Mark Fields was mainly an inability to focus the company’s push into next-generation options for personal transportation—and sell the vision to Wall Street and his own board.

Other manufacturers are grappling with the same challenge: how to maintain a sharp eye on the relentlessly competition of carmaking while marshalling major resources to ready themselves for a fast-approaching era of highly connected vehicles and mobility options that don’t necessarily involve personally owned vehicles.

“We need speed,” Chairman Bill Ford Jr. told reporters on Monday. “We have to move faster, and we have to trust people to move faster.”

Fields, who was relieved of command on Friday after four years as CEO, delivered record profits for Ford and presided over the successful revival of the company’s operations in Europe and China. He also launched several initiatives to help Ford explore ride-sharing, electrified powertrains, connectivity and autonomous vehicles.

But critics say his efforts were too slow and not well focused. Wall Street’s skepticism is reflected in the 40% drop in Ford’s stock price over the past few years. Other traditional carmakers haven’t made a strong impression on investors either, as evidenced by their languishing share prices.

But observers say the last straw for Ford’s board may have come a month ago when the market value of electric-carmaker Tesla Inc.—a chronically money-losing enterprise with relatively microscopic sales value—surpassed those of Ford and General Motors. One analyst notes that Tesla “engenders optimism, freedom and defiance” lacking among other carmakers.

Critics say Fields also allowed bureaucratic infighting and turf battles—issues that his predecessor Alan Mulally was able to curb with his One Ford philosophy—to seep back into Ford’s corporate culture.

Chairman Ford has compared Mulally’s ability to focus the entire company with the collaborative skills displayed by Fields’ successor, Jim Hackett. Ford told reporters he was impressed with Silicon Valley’s perception of Hackett as a “true change agent.”