Running Scared On GM's Cadillac Assembly Line--Jumping In Over Your Head, Part 1

I was 19 years old, and terrified.

I’d grown up in Rocky River, Ohio, where my mom taught school and coached the 9th-grade boys wrestling team. At the age of 12, I got my professional start as a welder in my dad’s 5-person machine shop. Intimidating for a little kid, I guess, but it didn’t scare me because as my dad said, “Not only did I not know anything, I didn’t suspect anything.”

Then when I was 17, my dad said, “If we’re going to grow into a big 10-person company someday, we’ll need a real engineer to run things. You should go to college.” My dad loved to drink a boilermaker or two after a hard day at the factory, so Purdue University (Go Boilermakers!) seemed like just the place for me to study Industrial Engineering.

I remember that first class when Professor Barney said, “Look to your left… Now look to your right... One of you will not be here next year.” That scared me a little, but I wasn’t terrified. Even I could figure my odds were better than 50/50. But to beat the odds, I hit the books like there was no tomorrow. To my dad’s amazement (and mine) I ended up with straight A’s my freshman year.

During my sophomore year, the most powerful company on the planet—and our machine shop’s biggest customer, General Motors—awarded me a full scholarship along with the promise of great summer internships in the Manufacturing Capital of the world, Detroit.

And here’s where the terrifying part begins…

That first summer, my internship was to take on the job as production foreman on the 2nd shift chassis line for Cadillac Motors at one of GM’s oldest and biggest auto plants in the world, the Cadillac Assembly plant on Clark Street. This happened to be in the roughest part of downtown Detroit. That didn’t scare me (much). Heck, my dad’s old machine shop was in Cleveland.

What did scare me was that on day one, I discovered that I had 25 of the biggest, roughest, meanest looking guys I had ever seen working for me. And here’s the kicker. My boss was concerned about the possibility of what we’ll call “mood modifiers” getting a foothold in the plant. It was my job to make sure that didn’t happen, or stop it if it was already going on. Now, that was terrifying.  

As a squeaky-clean 19-year-old college boy, I had never had any experience with “mood modifiers” and had no idea how I would ever begin to address this issue with the big rough bunch of guys I was supposed to be overseeing. On my first day, “my guys” had already started calling me “The West Pointer.” Probably because I looked so straight-laced and always wore a white shirt with a tie.

After my first terrifying day on the job, I spent most of the night in the fetal position. In the morning, I woke up and said out loud, “Screw it! I have nothing to lose.” Then I jokingly thought to myself, “Yeah, nothing but my life.” That made me laugh. It also reminded me of a great piece of advice my dad gave me the summer before going off to Purdue.

One day on the way to work, I asked him, “Dad, everybody likes you; why is that?” And he said to me, “When you’re with the pope, you pray. When you’re with a drunkard, you drink. Anything in-between goes, but always be yourself.” Basically, it was his way of saying, have range but maintain your integrity.

I took his advice to heart. I headed in to the second day of my stint as the squeaky-clean 2nd shift production foreman with an idea: Instead of being intimidated by those guys, I would get close. Bring all the barriers down. Drop any “college boy” pretense and just be myself. Humble, ready to learn, and ready to lead. Instead of being “me” and “them,” we would become “us.”

It was easy to see that one of the men, Sam, was the natural leader of the group. He was a big bull of a guy. I’m sure being the strongest of the bunch had a lot to do with him commanding the other guys’ respect. After our shift ended, at 1:00 am, I went out with Sam for “lunch” and a few cold beverages. That night, I decided to take the risk and jump into water over my head. I leveled with Sam about what my boss had told me I had to do, and I admitted to him how panicked I was about it.

When I’d finished pouring my heart out, he just looked at me for what felt like an hour. I thought I was done for. Reputation completely gone. And then he said, “I’m gonna help you out.” I don’t know when I’ve ever been so relieved. It turns out Sam had had a “mood modifier” problem in his past and he didn’t want the other guys on the line to make the same mistake. Honestly, I think half the reason he did it was that he felt sorry for me. Ok, way more than half.

I will never forget that summer and Sam’s act of kindness. I ended up loving those guys. We chewed tobacco together, cursed together, swapped jokes together and after work we always went to “lunch” together at 1:00am. I embraced the challenge of leading a team of “seasoned” assembly line workers much older than me. I realized that my age—or my tie—could never hold me back. And with Sam’s help, I accomplished my mission. He turned out to be quite a persuasive ally.

That summer taught me some unforgettable lessons. First, relationships are about trust. To build trust you have to be vulnerable. And that means taking a risk. I’m convinced now that the faster you can build trusted relationships, the more effective you are as a leader. Can you build a trusted relationship in one night? How about in an hour? I learned another important lesson in human nature that summer. We are all far more alike than we are different.

Those lessons are second nature to me now, but they came from remembering what my dad taught me and having the courage to jump into water over my head.

For many people, fear can cause paralysis and a lack of action. But I have embraced the opposite approach: Rather than avoiding things I'm afraid of, I push myself to confront my fears as a way to have more impact in this wonderful world we live in. That’s why I encourage you to jump into water over your head—even when you can’t see the bottom. It’s scary but fun.

Check out Part 2 of Jumping Into Water Over Your Head. The story resumes with my move to Silicon Valley and a big test of integrity at a troubled start-up. 

In the meantime, the video below includes even more examples, starting with my undergrad experiences with Sigma Chi at Purdue.