In a random conversation yesterday, a friend of mine asked me how I would fix General Motors. I gave a random list of things that popped to the top of my head and how I would change things. I figured that I would write down the list for fun.

a/ Rename the company. GM is a bad and damaged brand. It is known for making cheap cars and decent enough trucks. But, it is an old conglomerate brand that is no longer relevant in the market.

b/ Kill every GM sub-brand. There is simple a new company (let's call it Foo for now).

c/ Focus customers on a logo - get them to resonate with a luxury ideal.

d/ Begin a three year plan to kill off the dealership network.

e/ Put a new Foo store in every mall next to every Apple store that is highly designed, user friendly, and a nice place for a customer to buy a car.

f/ Create a 9 region distribution center system. Customers should not understand the concept of inventory on a lot. Instead, they should go to a nice shopping experience, buy what they want and have it delivered to their house within 72 hours of purchase.

g/ Move to a buy-on-Internet model. To supplement the stores, we want to encourage and drive users to foo.com to purchase their automobiles.

h/ Create a "automotive certified" program across the US for old dealerships to focus on service and warranty maintenance of the the cars.

i/ Get rid of the idea of choice. That is, a car comes fully equipped and the user gets to select exterior color, interior color - all cars come fully loaded.

j/ No more price negotiation. The price is the price. A user doesn't walk in to Nordstrom today and haggle over the price of Manolo shoes. They pay the price.

k/ Get rid of the idea of a model year. We will build great cars and ship them (deliver them) when they are ready. There is no need for a user to understand that they have a 2010. What they should know is that the have a cool Bar from Foo.

l/ Stop going to auto shows. Why show the competition the future thinking. Stop leaks, build great cars and then publicly announce them at launch events when they are ready.

m/ Reduce the number of models. Bucket the cars into categories and have one car per category.

n/ As union contracts come due, don't renew. Start building a union free company.

o/ Move out of Detroit. It is too depressing. Move the company to a cool location - San Fran, San Diego or maybe a warm east coast location.

p/ Fire the current design staff. They have created the worlds ugliest cars. Go after Audi, BMW, and Mercedes employees and software/hardware designers.

q/ As dealer networks are killed, as models are killed, start building a smaller company with a smaller staff. You need small agile teams per model.

r/ Move to a good healthy compensation model. Give employees stock options, RSUs and cash bonuses to make the broad and strive to succeed.

s/ Focus on high quality materials - no more cheap plastic and joints.

This is just the beginning. We need to create a mission, strategies to execute on and the tactics to get there. Need to be translucent to the employees, but secretive to the outside world and focus on execution and delivering technology and products that will excite users. The is the beginning path. The future will still be tough, but, a playbook is created for execution. If you aren't on board with this plan - quit. If I find you and talking badly about this plan, fired.