Delphi was supposed to be turned around and out of the soup years ago. So its Chief Executive Office Steve Miller assumed. Based on that assumption he published his book "The Turnaround Kid." In it he named names. That would have boosted book sales and probably made him come across as courageous and candid. But things didn't turn out that way.
Instead of leaving Dodge after doing his job fixing Delphi, Miller had to stay on. Only now, as THE NEW YORK TIMES reports, after four years in bankruptcy proceedings, is the company seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Miller probably isn't a student of Nassim Taleb who preaches that gospel of black swans, that is unexpected developments which can have profound unexpected impacts. Think the Internet. Think also the implosion of the U.S. auto industry.
Miller likely wasn't thinking that way. He was likely thinking linear. His book went out. He was left in Dodge to have to work with those he put the knock on in his book.
Authors, agents, publishers as well as ghostwriters can learn from Steve Miller's sad story. When he does finally ride out of Dodge, unlike his other turnarounds such as at Chrysler in the early 1980s, it won't be as a hero.
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