The Automotive Leaders Podcast · Jan Griffiths

Leading Through Change: The Culture Shift Automotive Leaders Need to Compete Today

·51 min·4 clips

Terry Wychowski reveals why leadership is fundamentally about embracing change, not just managing the status quo.

Host Jan Griffiths, a 35-year auto industry veteran, interviews Terry Wygant, President of Caresoft and former GM executive, about the leadership and cultural shifts required for the industry's transition to electric and software-defined vehicles. They argue that legacy automakers cannot succeed with outdated leadership models and processes. A core theme is that change itself is the "arena of leadership," and avoiding risk is a fundamental threat. Wygant shares a study by Italian mathematicians finding that companies choose successful leaders only 50% of the time, akin to a coin flip. He contrasts legacy automakers' risk-averse, specification-heavy design processes with the agility of Chinese OEMs and Tesla. Chinese companies achieve faster vehicle development programs (VDP) by quickly adopting and improving upon existing innovations rather than reinventing everything in-house. Tesla exemplifies continuous, rapid improvement even in serial production, such as replacing an 11kg lead-acid battery with a 1kg lithium-ion unit to save weight and boost range. A surprising insight is that inefficiency often stems from organizational silos, illustrated by a Michigan roads official who never spoke to a tire engineer despite the critical interface between roads and tires. Wygant explains that "brackets" in vehicle design symbolize a lack of integration and add non-value cost. He recounts a personal leadership lesson from running a GM paint shop, where he learned that in plant culture, cursing was interpreted as serious direction, not just dialogue. The conversation is direct, educational, and rich with specific examples from both hosts' deep operational experiences. Automotive executives, engineers, and managers seeking pragmatic insights on cultural transformation will find this episode highly valuable. Listeners looking for a high-level strategic discussion without technical depth might find it too granular.

As heard by us

Old habits cannot carry a new automotive era.

The episode treats automotive change as a leadership and culture problem first, with technology sitting in the passenger seat. Jan Griffiths and Terry keep returning to the gap between ICE to BEV change and the old habits that still shape how the industry works, and that focus…

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Why you'd press play

If your team is trying to change the auto industry without changing the operating system behind it, press play.

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