I was just looking for a job, not a career,” quips Hazel, a married father of two.
Over a 29-year period, he was placed in a series of managerial positions — from sales and marketing to strategic management and product development — that made him one of the industry’s most versatile executives. By 2001, he became a Ford Motor vice president and head of Ford Customer Service Division. By 2002, he was named LM’s president, overseeing all aspects of the division’s marketing, sales, and service operations. Along the way, this straight shooter earned a number of fans. Says Mickey Bowers, president of the Ford Minority Dealers Association: “Every job that I’ve seen him at with Ford Motor Company, he has been successful at. He worked at Customer Service Division and he did a good job there. He worked at Lincoln Mercury Division and he did a good job there. And we are really glad to have him over on the Ford Division side now.”
What distinguished Hazel was his leadership style, one that emphasized not only fighting battles for market share side-by-side with his troops but living within proximity to them. Unlike his predecessor, who commuted from Michigan to the West Coast when he ran Irvine, California-based LM, Hazel sold his Detroit home and set up residence in Irvine when he gained the position.
Hazel’s success is rooted in his keen evaluation of his team’s strengths and weaknesses. “Part of my philosophy is to try to avoid asking people to do what they can’t do. If people want to contribute and want to work, then what you do is try to position it so they can make the largest contribution,” he says. “That, I think, had something to do with some of the success we had at Lincoln Mercury.”
The approach played a key role in the division’s resurrection. In addition to building a solid team, Hazel fought to get resources comparable to other divisions. For example, he pushed Ford’s product engineering staff to design models for the LM line that offered customers more style and performance. This enabled the division to expand from its two top-selling vehicles, the Town Car and Navigator, to a revenue-generating slate that includes the Aviator and the new-for-2006 Zephyr. “Darryl does a great job of articulating a message of hope and winning,” says Laymon of Hazel’s management skills. “He takes a group of folk, develops a clearly crafted strategy, and motivates them to perform at never-imagined levels. He has very long coattails. When he leaves a division, people want to follow him.”
CREATING A NIMBLER FORD
When Hazel was tapped to head the Ford Division, there was a bit of a culture clash. The smaller LM Division was more entrepreneurial in nature and quicker to adapt to market changes. Ford, on the other hand, is the proverbial 800-pound gorilla, says Hazel. “Lincoln Mercury is lower volume, it’s smaller. You have to work harder to make a dollar there, and so that culture just develops,” Hazel points out. “Ford is almost omnipresent.