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Red Curtice loses some of the friendly crinkles around his eyes when he settles down between his two desks to run the corporation from the 14th floor of Detroit's General Motors Building. As he scans the reports from G.M.'s earth-girdling ventures in autos, Frigidaires, diesel locomotives, radios and earthmovers, he becomes again the eagle-sharp comptroller who can tell from figures how men and machines are doing. His predecessor, rumpled Engineer Charlie Wilson, used to gab cheerfully with friends, and occasionally gave friendly advice to some of his lesser competitors, such as Nash and Kaiser. Curtice rarely finds time for such activity, a fact that has not endeared him to his fellow corporation executives outside of G.M. For example, Curtice is a member of the Department of Commerce's Business Advisory Council but hardly ever attends the meetings.
But inside G.M., Curtice's brisk efficiency is genuinely respected. Wilson used to keep the staff (including Executive Vice President Curtice) waiting around for hours while he made decisions. But Curtice is swift in decision and rarely wrong. If executives do not expect compassionate sympathy, they do expect—and get—justice. One result: there is little infighting in G.M.'s executive suites. Says Executive Vice President Albert Bradley: "We are all living in glass houses, and we go to great lengths to play fair with each other."
Fast Company. No G.M. president could ever be a dictator, even if he had the inclination, because the unwritten constitution of G.M. has its full quota of checks and balances. Big decisions at the top are made in committee, and the president must sell the top committees (of which he is a member) on his policies before he can execute them. Curtice had to sell the powerful Operations and Financial Policy Committees (which report directly to the board) before he could bet his big billion in January 1954. Says a fellow committeeman: "He prepares his presentation for the committees just as if he expects 100% opposition."
The committee system can move fast when it has to: for example, after the laments of a few G.M. dealers were widely publicized in the hearings before Wyoming's Senator Joseph C. O'Mahoney last month (TIME, Dec. 12), Curtice and the Operations Policy Committee went into session one Sunday, came out that evening with a far-reaching decision to extend all G.M. dealers' contracts from one to five years. This also indicated how the committee system can put pressure on Curtice. He thought that the complaints of dealers were exaggerated, that he did not have to pay much attention to them. But other top men thought that Curtice was wrong, and they made no bones about saying so.
The G.M. constitution reserves considerable power to the semisovereign, ever-competitive divisions. Curtice could probably fire a divisional vice president outright if he wanted to act out a Hollywood version of the tycoon, but he would not. The unwritten law demands that such a grave personal decision be discussed up and down the committees. A divisional vice president with the prestige of Buick's Ivan Wiles spends a huge operating budget as he sees fit, and goes to the top only when he thinks his actions might affect the other divisions, or when he wants new capital.