With a title like “President-The Americas,” you might imagine that Ford’s Mark Fields has a certain grandiosity about him.  After all, that’s quite a designation to have on one’s business cards.  Yet while sitting in the passenger seat of a Lincoln MKS with an EcoBoost engine under its hood—a turbocharged, direct-injected engine--while Fields was driving rather, um, speedily on a two-lane in northern Michigan, it became very clear to me that far from being some sort of exalted executive, he is a regular guy who happens to have a big job.  A very big job.

Fields was in northern Michigan to address the Center for Automotive Research’s Management Briefing Seminar.

Fields was appointed to his position in October 2005.  The fortunes of Ford have not done so well in the subsequent years.  Nor have those of many of its competitors, either.  Fields acknowledges that in 2004 trucks and SUVs accounted for about 70% of the company’s lineup.  And it should surprise no one that in the past several months, trucks and SUVs have been doing about as well as corn dogs at a vegetarians’ convention.  So Fields admits that they’ve been working to flip that.  And they are continuing to make the change.  The Michigan Truck Plant, for example, is going to be transformed during the next 18 months to C-car production.  “We’ll need to come up with a new name for the plant,” Fields commented, factually but wryly.

At a dinner the evening before his speech, Fields took a number of questions.  He showed a level of understanding and commitment that is truly rare among people in his position, particularly when they’re under the sort of pressure that Detroit Three executives are now feeling.

While some people think that the recent moderation in gas prices (somehow gasoline going from +$4.00/gallon to +$3.80/gallon is a blue light special) will mark a return to trucks and SUVs, Fields said that when it comes to high gas prices, “In the customers’ minds, this is here to stay.  $1.50 gas is not coming back.”  And while he acknowledged that trucks and SUVs and, yes, V8 engines, will continue to have roles to play (with trucks being used as “tools” by those who need them for work and large SUVs being useful to those with large families and things that need towing), he said that if Ford’s vehicle business is thought of being a stool, and if trucks are one of the legs, then “We can’t depend on that one leg any more. . . .We have to create new legs.”

But one thing puzzled me.  Back when there was great dependence on trucks and SUVs, back when planning was being done and products were being developed, there were smart people at Ford (as well as at the other companies).  Why, especially post-9/11 wasn’t there a greater awareness of the importance of fuel efficiency?  Why were they missing what has become the market?

So I asked Fields.  And he said that this is a business about going forward, and to look back is not particularly helpful.

But he did admit something important.  “We didn’t have a strong enough point-of-view.”  And he went on to explain that there had been a tendency to rely on clinic results for determining what they would do.  Or wouldn’t.

They would build models.  They’d have consumers look at them.  If 1 was bad and 10 was good, they’d go with whatever scored 7.  That, after all, would be safe.  Which is a nice way of saying things like “bland” or “innocuous.”

They’re not going for 7s at Ford any more.  They are going to start using more of their own judgment.  Their own point-of-view.

And given Fields’ evident delight when getting the turbo to spool like crazy as he mashed the accelerator of the MKS, that’s a good thing for Ford.  Point-of-view matters.