ROBERT JAMES EATON: BIOGRAPHY, TECHNICAL AND CONCEPTUAL SKILLS - DUDAS - 2024

Robert James Eaton (born February 1940) is a businessman who has served as president and CEO of Chrysler Corporation from 1993 to 1998. His approach to business management and his point of view on teamwork, not only gave a turn to the companies in which he has worked during his life, but has overlapped the management of companies in the world.

His theories and methods not only work to create a good work environment, but also launch companies to success, as was the case with Chrysler. At first, he was considered a weak, indecisive and even a little soft manager, but the passage of time showed that he knew very well what he was doing, and as a result he has become one of the highest paid executives in the world.

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Birth and childhood

Robert James Eaton was born in Buena Vista, Colorado, although he grew up in Arkansas City, Kansas. It was at the University of Kansas that he graduated with a BS (Bachelor of Science) as a Mechanical Engineer in 1963.

After graduation, he began working at General Motors, one of the United States' automobile factories, based in Detroit. Ten years later, after his good work and not going unnoticed, he was promoted to chief engineer of the new General Motors models that would have front-wheel drive.

In 1982 he was promoted to vice president of advanced engineering and was later named president of General Motors Europe. Although Eaton was still in the United States, he was ultimately responsible for all operations carried out at the company's European headquarters, which included making various trips from one side of the Atlantic to the other.

Eaton at Chrysler

This was a highly responsible position that Eaton was performing masterfully, something that reached the ears of Lee Iacocca, the CEO of Chrysler. Lee was about to retire and needed to name a successor, and although he was in charge of doing it, his decision gave rise to misgivings.

First, because Chrysler was General Motors' biggest competitor; and on the other hand, because there were three names that sounded like possible successors to Lee Iacocca: Fred Miller, Gerry Greenwald and Robert Lutz.

However, Robert Lutz soon felt like the winner of this competition, as Miller showed no interest in this position, while Greenwald accepted an offer as president of pilots for United Airlines.

But Lutz's illusions would quickly collapse when the news broke that it would be Eaton and not him who would succeed the businessman who had managed to relaunch the company.

Still, Eaton managed to win over Lutz, and they later collaborated together to form a team that would take Chrysler to the highest point it had ever been. How did Eaton achieve this?

Your technical skills at Chrysler

In addition to being known for his conceptual techniques, which we'll discuss below, his technical skills were crucial to getting Chrysler to the pinnacle it is at even today.

For example, there is a well-known occasion when the company's second majority shareholder, the Armenian billionaire Kerkorian, put a Tender Offer on the table.

The purpose was to take over the company or add representatives to the Board of Directors that favored it. It could be said that it is something similar to a coup in a government, but on a small scale.

Despite being a tough situation, Eaton was able to cope well with it and be successful. They signed a five-year peace accord in which Kerkorian pledged not to want to take over the company in a hostile way or to increase its stake.

In return, Eaton offered him a representation on the board of directors, opened a share buyback from which Kerkorian would profit, and made minor changes to the bylaws that he himself suggested.

His conceptual techniques

Eaton was a very different leader than Lee Iacocca was. From the first moment he was reliable, accessible and insightful, having an internal point of view, of teamwork.

He managed to create a work team that collaborated together and did not compete with each other. He did not need a secretary to answer the phone, and he often wandered into the manager's and worker's offices to chat with them and get to know them better. Her secret to success, without a doubt, was empathy.

Relationship with workers

Although the workers were a bit confused at first, Eaton's sincere interest in them soon gained their trust. And not only did he settle for doing it himself, but he taught other managers to be more accessible to gain the trust of workers.

His concept was clear: a company works by good management, and a good director has to earn the trust of his workers, because without them, neither the director nor the company are nothing.

It is much better to have a single team than a confrontational team. The good atmosphere created by these methods led to the development of one of the company's best-selling cars, the Chrysler Neon.

Eaton encouraged managers and managers to allow workers to voice their opinion by asking questions like, "What are you really concerned about about this issue?" «What solution would you give it?»; "How do you think this could be improved?"

Gaining trust was vital if they were to feel comfortable expressing what they really thought. In 1997 FORBES magazine recognized Chrysler as the company of the year for being "intelligent, disciplined and intuitive," as its pages quoted verbatim.

Other professional achievements

After completing his time as CEO of Chrysler in 1998, James Eaton obtained a number of highly valued and well-paid positions such as:

• President of the National Academy of Engineering.
• Director of Chevron –energy company–.
• Member of the Board of International Paper - the largest company of its kind in the world, with more than 56,000 employees.
• Administrator of the University of Kansas Foundation.

There is no doubt that sometimes those who seem weaker are the strongest. Robert James Eaton's conceptual techniques did not seem well accepted and made him look soft, a title that as his career shows has nothing to do with him.

References

1. Dyer JH. How Chrysler created an American keiretsu. Harv Bus Rev. 1996.
2. Benson JA, Thorpe JM. Chrysler's Success Story: Advertising as Anecdotes. J Pop Cult. 1991.
3. Business changes.Tesis.uson.mxdigital / Chapter2.
4. Robert James Eaton. Wikipedia.org.
5. ROBERT EATON MV060. (2019). Retrieved from elmundo.es