I’m not a big fan of Chrysler CEO Bob Nardelli, and there is a simple reason why: I’ve always thought he lacked any real touch in managing people. From my perspective, he was an overcompensated tough-guy caught up in his own self-importance.

I’ve written before that the tone set by the CEO impacts the entire company culture.

When the most senior person in an organization sets the right tone, it can motivate and focus the company, but when the message from the top comes down like an edict from God, well, most workers don’t respond to that very well.

Bob Nardelli has never been about setting the right tone.

When he was CEO of Home Depot, he pretty much destroyed the company’s people-oriented culture, changing the home improvement store “from a place with great customer service to one where it became difficult to find anybody who could help you.” When his huge compensation arrangement became an issue for his board of directors, he stomped out with a $210 million departure package, only to surface later as CEO of Chrysler.

Operating an American automaker is very different from running Home Depot, but Nardelli’s tactics are the same. His latest employee-friendly edict: telling all workers they would “be required to use two weeks of their vacation time in July, in a companywide shutdown intended to improve the automaker’s efficiency and boost productivity,” according to a story in The Detroit Free Press.

Chrysler lost some $2.9 billion last year, so clearly, management needs to take some bold steps. And, according to a company spokesperson, the average Chrysler nonunion worker is allowed to take a total of four weeks of vacation a year. So is it a big problem to require people to take some of their time in the summer when it would help the company?

It’s probably not, but given that most people plan for vacations on a regular calendar year basis, why didn’t Chrysler management roll out this new requirement in the last quarter of 2007—in time for employees to plan for this year?

According to the Free Press, “Workers were surprised by the announcement. One told the Free Press that people were puzzled and unhappy that the new policy was not put into place at the beginning of the year or the start of next year, and pointed out that people are concerned that if they’ve used their vacation time already they’ll be forced to take unpaid time off in July.”
A company spokesperson, in a masterful use of management speak, seemed to confirm this.

The Free Press reported: “ ‘We’re not taking vacation away from people. We’re requiring them to realign their schedules to this time frame,’ said Chrysler spokeswoman Mary Beth Halprin. Employees who don’t have enough remaining vacation may be able to work in critical areas of the company that must continue to operate, she said, but acknowledged that ‘one option might be unpaid vacation.’ ”

I’d love to see Chrysler, and all the American automakers, turn their bleak financial situations around. It’s a tough job and it takes tough decisions, and maybe it takes a tough guy like Bob Nardelli to make them. But still I wonder: How much more buy-in would you get from workers if you instituted a policy like “forced vacation” in a way that made it easy for them get on board instead of cramming it down their throats?

It’s a symbolic thing, I think, but Nardelli has never seemed to be big on positive symbols that get the workforce to embrace what he’s doing.

That’s too bad, because I think it is what a company like Chrysler needs to get workers on board and behind the tough management decisions that surely lie ahead. It takes a deft and subtle management touch at the top to pull that off. Unfortunately, deft and subtle are decidedly not Bob Nardelli’s strong suit.