The Future of General Motors, How to Be a Good Manager, and Advice to a High School Senior

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0:43With Thumbtack, you don't have to be a home pro. You just have to hire one. You can hire top-rated pros, see price estimates, and read reviews all on the app. Download today. Welcome back to Office Hours with Prof G. This is the part of the show where we answer your questions about business, big tech, entrepreneurship, and whatever else is on your mind. And if you'd like to submit a question, please email a voice recording to officehours at propertymedia.com. Again, that's officehours at propertymedia.com. So with that, first question. Hi, this is Stu O 'Neill, and I am curious as to your thoughts on General Motors.

1:18I live in the Detroit area and have witnessed thousands of GM workers being laid off recently, coupled with GM's deeper commitment to entering F1 racing. Shrinkful timing, in my opinion. They bet too much on EVs, it seems, and find themselves behind the eight ball. I'm curious as to your thoughts on the company. It seems to have lost its bearings and maybe even a bit of its soul, at least here in Detroit. Thanks. Love everything about the podcast. Stu from Detroit, thanks for the question. Okay, so in November, GM announced plans to lay off over 1 ,000 employees globally, with most of those job cuts affecting workers in Michigan.

1:52I would think as a percentage of their total workforce, that's actually not that many. I think you'd rather be at General Motors right now than, I don't know, a media company. According to a GM spokesperson, these layoffs were made to optimize for speed and excellence. Jesus Christ, can you get over the corporate speed? We're making less money, so we need to fire people. At some point, somebody in one of these companies is going to start actually speaking or actually telling people the truth. This comes after a rough year for U.S. automakers as they deal with slow growth in EV sales and consumer demand that still lags behind pre-pandemic levels.

2:25Ford and Stellantis are among the other major car manufacturers that did major layoffs last year, letting go of 750 and 2200 Michigan-based employees, respectively. The good news, GM recently overtook Ford as the second largest seller of EVs in the U.S. behind Tesla. Last quarter, Ford reported an 8 % annual decline in their EV sales, while GM reported a 60 % increase. GM chose to ease into the EV business slowly, opting to develop standardized battery pack technology before coming out with the new EV models. Because of this, GM can now tap into an economy of scale and use the batteries across many different models, all while being able to bring their manufacturing costs down.

3:01GM's cheapest model starts at$35 ,000 with a$7 ,500 tax credit, while Ford's is$40 ,000 and does not qualify for any tax credit. So basically, I mean, it just makes sense, right? If you can put out a similar product at a lower price, you're going to capture share. General motor stock price is actually up 45 % in the last year, while close competitors, including Ford, Honda, and Nissan are all in the red. So look, GM is doing pretty well. In the past year, Ford's down 17%, Honda down 7%, Nissan down 24%. So I would argue General Motors is actually doing pretty well. I just think it's easy to kind of shit on Detroit right now.

3:39And I think these companies, while they leaned in too heavily to EVs trying to follow the leader, not acknowledging they didn't have access to the cheap capital that Tesla has, so they couldn't play in traffic, and the fact that hybrids have surprised to the upside, while EV has kind of surprised, I think a little bit to the downside, but I would argue that General Motors is actually holding its own. Thanks for the question. Question number two. Hey, Scott, I'm a 28-year-old living in Southern California. I've been listening to your podcast for about two years now, and your advice has been extremely influential on me, so thank you.

4:12Like I said, I'm 28 years old. My friends and I have found some early success in our careers, all making about$250 ,000 a year or more, and also enjoying our jobs at the same time, which I think makes us pretty lucky. I listen to your podcast, so I'm pretty bought into the notion that this is a lot of luck, timing, and privilege. I would say coming out of college, my approach was to listen, learn, assume that others had the answers over me and kind of take those things that they're doing well and try to apply it to my own work style. I'd say now it's a bit of a transitional period where I'm seeing myself moving to leadership roles.

4:43People are looking to me for answers and I'm also reading the direction of the team in a lot of instances, actually. So my question to you is this. What advice would you give to a 28-year-old in this transitional period in a corporate role? How do you strike the balance between humility and open-mindedness while also being decisive and steady while leading a team? It's a really exciting time in my career. I'm looking forward to the transition next steps, and I appreciate you listening. Thanks. Okay, Lyle from California. First, I want you to do the following. I want you to take pause and realize that at the age of 28, at the age of 28, you're in the 98th, somewhere between the 98th and the 99th percentile of income earning households.

5:28My brother, you are killing it. So I hope you take the time as I did not do and have not done until I was in my forties and fifties to register your blessings and your achievements and not only feel good about yourself, but realize just how incredibly fortunate you must be to be in that position about how many moons have lined up. Anyways, you're talking about transitioning from being an employee to being a manager or a leader. And the mistake I made as a young man when I was your age, I thought, okay, I'm smart and I'm a nice person, which means I'll be a good manager. That is not true at all.

6:01That's like saying I'm smart and I'm a good person, which would make me a good nuclear submariner. I mean, this is management is its own skill that requires its own focus, attention, and practice. Generally speaking, I find the best managers are the following. They demonstrate excellence. On a regular basis, they're willing to roll up their sleeves and do something within that group, and they're the best at it. I just think people want to follow excellence. And also, you hold people accountable. Let's work on your objectives for the year or what do you think? I ask my employees to basically do a business plan with metrics, and then you hold them accountable.

6:38Are you hitting the number of site visits if that's their metric? Are you hitting the number of calls or whatever it might be that you need to or meetings you need to set up for the corporate development team? Are you increasing quality control? Whatever it might be, what gets measured gets done. Work with each of your employees to set up a series of reasonable but somewhat aggressive goals and then hold them accountable. Don't be mean. You're not going to berate people. You want to publicly praise, privately provide feedback. But you don't need to like everyone in your company, but you need to be able to look left and look right and say, I get it.

7:14And when people aren't held accountable and you create a culture of mediocrity, people that you're high performers stop working as hard because they don't see an incentive to do it when the guy left or right of them isn't working as hard or isn't as good and is getting similar types of compensation. So number two, hold your team accountable. And then three, and I didn't learn this until later in life, demonstrate empathy. What do I mean by that? I'm not saying being nice or a pushover. I'm saying try and understand their specific objectives and what is important to them in a professional setting.

7:46What do I mean by that? I assumed everybody like me wanted to be awesome and rich. That's it. Everybody wants to do what I want to do, right? No. Some people want more flexibility. Some people want to coach Little League. Some people want to see their name in lights. I found out that some people loved some sort of public praise. So I would, on a regular basis, when we got an inbound inquiry from the media company, I'd say, I'm going to hand you over to our analyst, Colin, who understands this better than me. And that was so rewarding to them. Some people want to manage others, figure out a way to put them in charge of something where they manage other people.

8:18Try and figure out what is important to that person and then demonstrate that you heard them and you are making an effort. You are making an effort to provide them with what is important to them. Loyalty is a function of appreciation. The key to a great company, in my view, is retention, specifically retaining the few employees that really drive a lot of value. And loyalty is a function of appreciation. So how do you appreciate them? There's economic appreciation, which is obviously very important, but there's also psychological appreciation. And that is, I get you and I know what's important to you.

8:51And I'm going to try and provide that because I understand I'm invested in your success. One, you demonstrate excellence. Two, you hold people accountable. You're a player, coach, manager, pull up the chair next to them, show them how to be better at their jobs. And three, demonstrate empathy specifically, show a willingness to learn what is important to them, and then foot your actions against what is important to them. We have one quick break before our final questions. Stay with us.

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11:06You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with EpGliss. Before starting EpGliss, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. Searching for real relief? Ask your doctor about EpGliss and visit epgliss.lily.com or call 1-800-LILY-RX or 1-800-545-5979. Welcome back. Question number three. Dear Professor G, I love your podcasts and have definitely learned a lot from them. My mom always sends them to me when she thinks I would be interested in the topic, so I usually listen to them during my workouts. I'm currently a senior in high school in Boca Raton, Florida. My choice of major is media management and my dream school just deferred me.

11:40Although I understand that's not rejection, it was still very upsetting and I'm doing everything I currently can to get accepted in April. What is your advice for a senior in high school like me pursuing a career in media management? And does the choice of college matter? I would like to remain in Florida as I love the beach and sang close to my family. If you can also provide feedback on the best ways to land a good internship in this field, since unfortunately I am not a Nepo baby and don't have any prior experience other than my usage with my own devices and the content I helped create in my current job.

12:08Respectfully, Chloe Shapiro. Okay, Chloe. So first off, you're going to do really well. I mean, you're clearly very articulate. You're clearly very organized. You're clearly very intelligent. So for the time being, I'm going to sideline the internship and professional. It's great that you think you know what you want to do. And I'm not suggesting everybody needs to, at some point, have a plan. You have a plan and you should foot your internships and your efforts against that plan. Most likely, you're going to end up in something totally different. At the age of 15, I thought I was going to be an athlete to make a living.

12:42At the age of 19, I thought I was going to be a pediatrician. At the age of 22, I had no fucking idea what I was going to do. At the age of 23, I thought I was going to be an investment banker. At the age of 25, again, I had no idea what I wanted to do because none of those things had worked out. And at the age of 27, I thought I might be a healthcare consultant. I'd accepted a job with a company called APM, a healthcare consulting firm. And I thought, Jesus Christ, I don't want to go back into the corporate world. I started a brand strategy firm, ended up in academia, ended up advising hedge fund.

13:10You just don't know, but you're doing exactly the right thing. You're thinking about it and you're trying to find the right platforms. College is a platform. Two, forgive yourself. I got rejected from the University of Indiana. I really wanted to, I really, my only, my dream was to go to UCLA and I got rejected when they had a 76 % admissions rate. I ultimately ended up getting in. But here's where you want to go. You want to go to college. It's an amazing experience. And what I would suggest is, and I don't know the exact situation you're in, but be open to other schools. You're going to have a great time.

13:44You're going to learn a lot. The brand matters. I'm not going to lie. The prestige of the school does attract a certain level of employer or a different level of employer. But what I would suggest is not getting into a school while at the time seems devastating. Trust me on this. When you're a little bit older, you're not going to be upset about not getting in. You're going to be upset about how upset you were. So if there's time, apply to other schools. Obviously, keep trying, demonstrating your ambition and your want for that school, following up. But recognize, if you don't get into that one school, as long as you get into a school and you go, you're going to have a great time and you're going to do really well.

14:24In terms of getting internships, it's a numbers game. It's reaching out to people. It's trying to be innovative, sending them voice recordings, sending them videos, whatever it might be, using AI to develop a media strategy for a company and sending it to them with your own spin on it and saying, hi, I'm Chloe Shapiro. I'll work for you. I want an internship and just being very aggressive, very persistent and willing to endure rejection. But let me just finish where I started. You are doing exactly what you should be doing. I apologize on behalf of the corrupt cartel called higher education that creates anxiety.

14:57I have been through it and I'm about to go through with my kids, but it caused me a tremendous amount of anxiety. And everyone listening to this podcast, Chloe, isn't thinking, oh, poor Chloe. She didn't get into the school she wanted, early decision. They're thinking, I would really like to be an impressive young woman about to start college living in Boca Raton. Best to you and yours, Chloe. That's all for this episode. If you'd like to submit a question, email a voice recording to officehours at profgmedia.com. Again, that's officehours at profgmedia.com.

15:38This episode was produced by Jennifer Sanchez. Our intern is Dan Shalon. Drew Burrows is our technical director. It's so nice to see Drew again. So nice to see Drew. He comes over to my house. He sets everything up. He's this nice presence. Thank you for listening to the Prof G Pod from the Vox Media Podcast Network. We will catch you on Saturday for No Mercy, No Malice, as read by George Hahn. And please follow our Prop G Markets pod wherever you get your pods for new episodes every Monday and Thursday.