Different companies' platforms in the same market niche are going to have a lot of similarities because they're meant to do the same things for the same customers- like a Silverado and an F-150. Not much difference there. Now different vehicles that share a platform generally have more differences. Sure, it can look only cosmetic, like with the Suburban and the Yukon, but what's really being done there is the Silverado/Sierra share a platform with the Suburban/Yukon. Those are huge differences, and a really good re-use of engineering and parts.
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Originally Posted by mcrews
I agreed he failed at the DMC that he created from thin air and a concept.
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So, ANY person who had levels of success in an organization, then leaves and trys something else - and fails is the Peter Principle?????
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He didn't try something else, he tried to move up from division head to CEO. He had a stellar track record of creating successful cars from thin air and concepts within someone else's company. Everything he did worked and he kept getting promoted. Everyone (himself included) thought that his past success at lower levels meant he would be a good CEO. Companies fail for many reasons. With startups, the failure generally isn't the founders' fault- starting a company that fails actually makes you look more valuable to existing companies and prospective startups because bad experience is a better teacher than good times.
The company wasn't doing well financially, but it may well have survived his inexperience and continued on- they had done a lot to overcome their initial quality problems. But he drove it into the ground by picking coke smuggling as a finance option.
Your insistence that the PP doesn't apply here because he started his own company is missing the forest for the trees. Remember all the crap Obama took for his "you didn't build that" line? DeLorean didn't build it. The DMC that he built was a few meaningless sheets of paper from his lawyers establishing a company. I can start Fat Charlie Motor Company today and it won't mean anything either, it'll just be a letter from the NH Department of State establishing an LLC. FCMC won't be anything real unless the higher ups in industry and government (the institution that you require promotion within) decide to promote me all the way up from dealership parts guy to car company CEO. That would be too much of a stretch, but promoting an awesome GM division head isn't unblievable. Banks, governments and others in industry promoted him. They bankrolled him and literally built his factory for him.
He was promoted to CEO because the Powers That Be were impressed with his performance as a division head and thought he would do well running a whole company. He had a rocky start because his engineering skill set didn't translate well, but he was working on overcoming that. The banks weren't convinced and cut him off. They had money into his operation and they were still so unimpressed with him as a CEO that they decided to cut their losses and shut him off. He confirmed their judgement by resorting to drug smuggling. Yes, the coke is the thing people point to, but what gets overlooked is that the professional money men, the ones who finance large industries, the ones who literally promoted him from division head to CEO, were so unimpressed with his actual abilities as a CEO that they shut him off. Only then did he get drug smuggling dropped in his lap and he thought it was a wonderful idea, confirming the bankers' assessment.
He did really well at every level up to division head.
The Powers That Be decided that it meant he'd do well at the next level, even though it called for a different skill set.
He didn't do well at all.
You can be drawing a paycheck from the same company for all those steps if you want. He didn't, but the process was the same. Say one of his steps was from GM to Ford and then GM hired him back to be CEO. When something eventually happened at GM that brought out his bad decision making, would that hip fake to another company make it look like the PP didn't apply? I don't think so: the process (principle, one might say) is the same no matter what building you're working in on any given day.