The Rise and Fall of Carlos Ghosn: Part 2

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Harvard Business Review

Teams, Business/management, Marketing, Strategy, Management, Innovation, Finance, Entrepreneurship, Economics, Hbr, Business/entrepreneurship, Harvard, Business, Leadership, Business/marketing, Communication

4.3 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 10 June 2021

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

After Carlos Ghosn’s dramatic turnaround at Nissan, profits soar and Ghosnmania sweeps Japan. But signs of trouble emerge as Ghosn takes over as the CEO of both Renault and Nissan in 2005. Then Ghosn’s high pay creates controversy in Japan and France. This second episode of a four-part series explores Ghosn’s leadership style and how it contributes to his eventual downfall.

Transcript

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0:00.0	So you got the job. Now what? Join me, Eleni Mata, on HBR's new original podcast, New
0:08.1	Here, the Young Professionals Guide to Work, and how to make it work for you. Listen for
0:13.8	free wherever you get your podcasts. Just search New Here. See you there!
0:30.0	In the car industry, giving an auto show speech is one of the trickiest maneuvers a CEO has to pull off.
0:40.2	Hundreds of journalists from around the world cram an auditorium, standing room only. They're
0:46.1	all jet lagged, hungover, and foot sore from the conference floor. So you put on a multimedia
0:51.5	presentation, dripping with marketing dollars, and tell yourself it's show time.
0:56.0	At the 2007 Tokyo Motor Show, Carlos Gone drove on to the stage in a new sports car. The
1:06.8	57-year-old with jet black hair stepped out, adjusted his suit jacket, gave a rye smile,
1:12.7	and launched into his speech. What you hear is the roar of Nissan's passion for performance.
1:23.4	What you see is its ultimate physical expression, the all-new Nissan GTR. It might have been one of
1:32.8	the best performances of his career. Gone launched five new models of cars in about eight minutes.
1:38.8	One moment, he was hyping a high-performance sports car. The next, he's touting an all-electric
1:44.3	vehicle, the precursor to the Nissan Leaf. In terms of emissions, though, ultimately, it's got to
1:50.5	be zero. The only way to get there soon is with electricity, and it's going to come first in urban
1:57.8	commuter vehicles. To write this speech, you have to know the voice of the company, and you really
2:05.2	have to know the voice of the CEO. My name is John Harris, and for three years, I was the
2:13.1	speechwriter for Carlos Gone, the CEO of Nissan. John Harris is a Canadian who still lives in Japan,
2:20.2	mainly working for foreign executives, helping them to communicate their vision. Some CEOs will tell
2:28.0	you, I want this, this, this, and they'll spend a lot of time with you and tell you their thoughts,
2:34.3	and be very hands-on. Gone's approach was, send me something, I will tell you if it's wrong.
2:41.9	And so the first draft was always like golf in the fog. You never knew, but you had to be close
	...

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