Bharara vs. Barra: A Time for Outrage?

After a year and a half long battle, GM CEO Mary Barra has emerged from the ignition switch recall crisis fairly unscathed though I would hardly say triumphant. But, for me, one thing was missing from her reaction throughout: outrage.

Outrage was in ample supply in the press, however.

Reaction was swift and negative to the U.S. Justice Department’s announcement that GM was being fined $900M in connection with the ignition switch recall investigation. Critics variously decried the fact that GM was being let off the hook with a slap on the wrist, that the penalty was less than the $1.2B paid by Toyota for its unintentional acceleration woes (still unresolved, according to some) and that no individuals had been made to answer for failing to fix a life-threatening flaw that had existed for a decade.

GM’s senior-most executives, Barra and Executive Vice President/Global Product Development/Purchasing/Supply Chain Mark Reuss, expressed their corporate mea culpas at company gatherings last week. Along with contrition came Barra’s expressed intention to continue to manifest real change at GM and Reuss’s plan to get on with the business of automotive innovation.

The settlement was announced by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara who left open the possibility of prosecuting specific GM employees. USAToday reported that as part of the settlement, GM admitted to having defrauded customers by marketing its vehicles as safe during the ten-year period when the defect was known.

USAToday also noted: “Separately, GM reached a deal to extend settlement offers to up to 1,385 additional victims of the defect. GM also confirmed that it has settled a shareholder lawsuit over its handling of the matter — with the two civil settlements collectively accounting for a $575M charge on its third-quarter earnings.”

The Justice Department is also expected to appoint a monitor to oversee the automaker's recall processes for three years.

But those are just the facts. The emotional response sought by observers is outrage – from GM’s senior management.

The absence of outrage is especially notable given the events immediately preceding GM’s acknowledgement of the ignition switch problem, which came in February of 2014, two months after the company named Barra as its first female CEO and a month after she took charge.

Rewind to October 16, 2013, when Mary Barra was recognized at the Fortune Magazine Most Powerful Women Summit and stated in a Q&A her intention as then-executive vice president global product development, purchasing and supply chain (a position now held by Reuss) to deliver “No more crappy cars.”

Car makers like to be brash and bold, but even in that context “no more crappy cars” had the bracing effect of a bucket of ice water – a wake-up call. In the trite parlance often used to characterize professional women, Barra was clearly no “shrinking violet” and maybe something of a “tough cookie.”

The official reaction to Barra’s appointment was widespread acclaim and praise for GM and recognition for Barra. But behind the scenes, industry old-timers were predicting that Barra would be a short-timer.

Barra’s appointment marked a return to the promotion of homegrown GM talent to the top position in the post-bankruptcy period. In that context it was easy for industry insiders to perceive Barra’s rise as a transitional move.

When the ignition switch recall news broke, the conspiracy theorists were then quick to connect Barra’s appointment to this new revelation. What better way to defuse critics, went the cynical reasoning, than to put a woman on the firing line to face the press, the industry, investigators and, on multiple occasions, the cameras during testimony before the U.S. Senate?

In the context of the massive ignition switch recall, Barra’s appointment looked like a set-up. She would be the fall gal, so the story went. Or so the conspiracy theorists thought.

But here we are, 1.5 years on, and Barra is still firmly in charge.

As for the absence of outrage, that’s pretty easy to explain. Barra worked her way up through the GM ranks over a 30-year period. She is as hardcore a GM lifer as the organization could possibly have created. As such, she will have felt personal responsibility for the company’s failings, but having experience in both engineering and human resources, also has a grasp of the human side of the issue inside and outside GM.

Barra knows better than most that people define GM’s greatest strengths and, perhaps, its greatest weaknesses. As such, there is no room for outrage – though she could have been forgiven for expressing outrage at the timing of her appointment AND the scope of the ignition switch failure.

The lack of outrage has somehow suggested a lack of shock, disgust and disappointment. But, again, we’re all adults. Barra immediately perceived the morale blow being felt by the company just a few short years after the bankruptcy and bailout.

Far from playing a temporary or transitional role or simply putting a more sympathetic and approachable face forward to the general public, Barra has become a change agent reorganizing GM around safety and a zero defects ethos. And changes continue to come as she puts her imprimatur on the company – something a short-timer could never pull off.

Rather than wasting time on outrage and hand-wringing, Barra used the crisis as a mandate for change. A perfect storm morphed into the perfect opportunity to bring a new attitude to GM while giving Barra an opportunity to leave a lasting legacy at the organization - after less than two years.

In the end, there was no time, no emotional space, for outrage. All that was left was for GM to subject itself to multiple formal investigations and internal soul searching and get about the business of reform and re-instatement to the good graces of the government and consumers. Still, the lack of outrage means we’ll all be watching GM closely…and Volkswagen… and Toyota.