From an 11-year-old farm girl in Wales staring at America through the glass of a museum case in Greenwich, to the shop floor at BorgWarner in Kenfig, to the drive up I-75 when the Detroit skyline first came into view, this is the story of what this country and this industry gave her, and what she believes we owe it now.
Jan draws a straight line from Frederick Taylor in 1911, and Henry Ford's 1913 assembly line, to the management playbook most automakers still run today. The country is 250 years old. The industry's operating system is barely younger, and it has hardly changed. Culture is not soft. Culture is how we behave and how we decide, and we don't have another century to figure it out while Chinese OEMs move at speed.
This one is personal, and it's a challenge to every leader who talks about transformation instead of defining it.
Episode Highlights
00:00 Intro
00:30 A special episode for America's 250th
01:10 Through the glass in Greenwich, 1976
02:25 Falling for the shop floor in Wales
03:20 "Don't go to Detroit"
06:04 A moment of gratitude
07:43 You never fully assimilate
09:56 Culture is not soft
10:55 A playbook from 1911
13:04 From relay race to basketball
14:34 What Henry Ford changed about work
16:29 All in
#AutomotiveLeadership #AuthenticLeadership #Detroit #Manufacturing #Leadership #AutomotiveIndustry #CultureChange #SupplyChain
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The Automotive Leaders Podcast is hosted by Jan Griffiths, the champion for culture change in the automotive industry. From a farm in Wales to the C-suite of a $3 billion Tier-1 supplier, Jan built her career inside this industry. Now she's out to transform it.
Her argument is blunt. The pressure on this industry isn't letting up. The survivors will be the ones who reinvent how they work. Speed wins. Everyone else gets left behind.
Every episode, Jan sits down with the leaders driving that change. Real conversations about tariffs, supply chain shocks, EV uncertainty, AI, and the shift from command-and-control to authentic, human-centered leadership.
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