The dean of automotive reporting, Paul Ingrassia, published a terrific interview with Alan Mulally, CEO of Ford Motor Company, in Saturday’s Wall Street Journal. Citing Ford’s $2.7 billion 2009 profit, and the fact that it was the only U.S. automaker not to duck into bankruptcy, Ingrassia noted how Ford might even surpass GM in market share for the first time in more than eighty years.

In When Growth Stalls, I document how struggling companies tend to keep themselves down through a combination of a loss of focus, a loss of nerve, a lack of management consensus and marketing inconsistency. I found it interesting that in Ingrassia’s analysis he inadvertently referenced how Mulally has dealt with three of these issues:

Loss of Focus: “[Mulally's] method has been to simplify, relentlessly and systematically, a business that had grown way too complicated and costly to be managed effectively. ’Improve Focus, Simplify Operations,’ reads one of Mr. Mulally’s many charts, which he repeats like a sacred mantra. Soon after his arrival Ford began shedding brands—Jaguar, Land Rover and Aston Martin among them—that the company couldn’t afford to support. Volvo will be next to go.”

Loss of Nerve: “The core Ford brand got an investment infusion to replace aging cars and revive a model lineup that had been heavily tilted toward gas-guzzling trucks.”

Lack of Consensus: “Mr. Mulally has overhauled the often-contentious culture in Ford’s executive suite. Most of his appointees are company veterans, but they’re the sort of people who typically got overlooked when style seemed to count more than substance, as it often did at Ford…Internal surveys show 87% of Ford employees believe the company is on the right track.”

Mulally summed up his recent success with a simple statement: ”It’s all about producing products people want.” That may be true of every company, but too few get it done–especially in the American automotive industry. I, for one, hope Ford’s comeback is a lasting one.

Not a day goes by without more news about Detroit’s beleaguered automakers. While each new development is notable in and of itself, I find it more telling to take a few steps back and look at the big picture.

Below are a few clips from selected Wall Street Journal articles I’ve run across over just the last few days. Take a minute and scroll through them. They tell a fascinating tale.

First, GM continues its inability to focus, revealing a growing lack of consensus between management and the board:

“In a dramatic change of course, General Motors Co. backed out of a deal to sell the company’s European operations to car-parts supplier Magna International Inc., and now plans to spend billions to restructure the money-losing business itself.”

“The decision…was made at a board meeting Tuesday in which the company’s directors strayed from the plan of Chief Executive Frederick “Fritz” Henderson, who had spent months negotiating the Magna agreement.”

“The Opel deal is the second major transaction to fall apart for Mr. Henderson in little over a month.”

“Whereas Mr. Henderson’s predecessor, Rick Wagoner, had often won in the boardroom by relying on the support of long-serving directors, Mr. Henderson appears to be tiptoeing through land mines of strong opinions by adjusting his game plan.”

“Carl-Peter Forster, who worked for GM for more than nine years, is quitting as chief executive of GM Europe. The decision follows a vote by the company’s board of directors on Tuesday to scrap a plan to sell control of the German Opel unit…”

“Despite his dissent of late, Mr. Forster was long viewed as a strong asset on GM’s executive roster and his departure serves another blow to Mr. Henderson, who has seen his management bench shorten since the company’s exit from bankruptcy.”

Across town, Chrysler is making fairy-tale sales and market share predictions to try to convince investors (that means you, taxpayer) that it will repay the $9 billion it owes us by 2014:

“The company said it is counting on a slew of new models to spark a surge in sales over the next five years and drive its revival.”

“Chrysler—which has seen its sales plunge by half in the last few years—predicted revenue will rise about 20% a year, from $42.5 billion in 2010 to $67.5 billion in 2014, and said it would break even in 2011.”

“To hit its financial targets, Chrysler expects to double its world-wide sales, from 1.3 million cars and trucks in 2009 to 2.8 million in 2014, and predicted its U.S. market share will rise from about 6% in 2009 to 11% in 2014.”

Meanwhile, Detroit’s only private automotive company, Ford, has gone about regaining its focus, finding its nerve and sticking to its game plan.

“Last week Consumer Reports gave the company quality ratings comparable to those of Honda and Toyota.”

“On Monday, Ford reported its second consecutive quarterly profit—and more impressively, a swing from a $7.7 billion cash burn a year earlier to positive cash flow of $1.3 billion in the just-ended third quarter…”

“The company gained a percentage of market share in the first 10 months of this year, no easy feat in an ultra-competitive market.”

“The company’s turnaround actually began three years ago with decisions that amounted to zagging every time that General Motors zigged, which was remarkable for a company whose strategy for decades was to follow GM.”

“While GM kept its unwieldy assortment of eight brands, Ford sold Jaguar and Land Rover, cutting its brand lineup down to a manageable size.”

“What’s more, shedding brands and shunning the mortgage business has helped Ford focus on quality, where it had slipped badly early in this decade.”

“Consumer Reports said last week that 90% of Fords, Mercurys and Lincolns rate average or better in quality, right up there with Honda and Toyota.”

“When the economy recovers and car sales increase, Ford could be in great shape.”

The automotive business is complex, but it doesn’t have to be that hard. Focus, nerve, consistency, consensus—no matter the industry, all tend to diminish when growth stalls. And all are essential to getting it back.

At the moment, Ford is the only one of the Big 3 to be paying attention.

Dot one…Recognizing the remarkable success of Apple’s iPhone, Palm launches the Pre, which (according to its ads), “does things iPhone can’t.” True enough, and as an iPhone user I must say that the Pre’s exclusive features are appealing. There’s just one problem–I don’t believe for a minute that the iPhone won’t adopt the same features within months. Given the time and psychological costs associated with switching not just my phone, but my service provider, I’m content to wait.

Dot two…Ford launches the all-new Taurus by touting “radar that monitors and alerts you when sensors detect vehicles in front of you…” and “hands-free, voice-activated communications and entertainment.” Like those of the Palm Pre, these features are highly attractive and I would like to benefit from both when I purchase my next vehicle. In all likelihood, I will, because if they’re as appealing to most people as they are to me, soon enough they’ll be available options (if not standard equipment) on most cars.

Connecting the dots…good luck trying to differentiate your brand based on features. As Joseph B. White, automotive columnist for the Wall Street Journal put it in his review of Mercedes’ new E550 Coupe, “Electronic gadgets such as radar-assisted cruise control or blind-spot hazard detection are falling down the technology-cost curve so fast that premium brands have only slits for windows of exclusivity on much of this hardware.”

Slits for windows of exclusivity. It’s true for cars, and it’s true for cell phones. It’s also true for computers. And hotels. And hamburgers (witness the recent scuffle between McDonald’s and Carl’s Jr over their “angus” burgers). Feature filching is a fact of life in just about every category of product or service. Unless an innovation is protected by intellectual property laws (and often in spite of that), not only can a given company not “own” it in consumers’ minds, but by hanging its hat on a feature it may inadvertently be sowing seeds that its competitors will reap.

What, then, is a marketer to do? Keep innovating, of course–that’s the ante. And when you do develop an exciting advance, do all you can to make the most of it. But keep in mind that it’s not individual innovations that will build brand equity, it’s your unique arc of innovation, presented in a credible, relevant, winsome and consistent context, that will ultimately differentiate your brand from its competition.

As of May 5th, your household’s share of the GM bailout was roughly $135 (see “What’s a Billion?”) Today, according to an accounting done by the Wall Street Journal, your “contribution” to GM and its former subsidiaries has shot up to well over six hundred bucks. That’s a very large increase in a very short time.

Meanwhile, Ford, the lone U.S. automaker standing on its own two feet, reported a second quarter profit of over $2 billion. While Ford’s profit is the result of a one-time gain due to debt restructuring, the company is nevertheless coping with the downturn better than its rivals.

As I’ve spoken to dozens of CEOs of struggling companies over the past several months, one of the silver linings I repeatedly hear about the current economic situation is the fiscal discipline it has imposed on their operations. Day after day they’ve had to come up with strategies to make their companies leaner and meaner–strategies that will serve them well long after things pick up. That’s how the free market works, and all of us (as consumers) are the beneficiaries.

GM has sucked some $70 billion of precious capital out of the private sector, but I doubt it’s the better for it. Innovation is a function of motivation, and there’s nothing more motivating than the threat of going under. No one may be throwing your company a lifeline, but keep swimming. Once you can stop to catch your breath you’ll be amazed at what good shape you’re in.

“I’m always looking for profitable growth on a sustained basis. That’s I think the hardest challenge in business–to not do it just once, but year after year.”

–Bruce Carbonari, CEO, Fortune Brands

That’s the lead quote in When Growth Stalls, and it’s fitting that it comes from the CEO of a company that’s currently stalled. Fortune Magazine’s annual Fortune 500 issue just hit newsstands, and Fortune Brands (#351 on the list and no relation to the magazine) suffered a revenue decline of more that 14 percent in 2008.

There are a number of other notable names on the stalled growth list. The top ten companies whose growth stalled in 2008 include:

#6 GM

#7 Ford

#11 Bank of America

#12 Citigroup

#13 Berkshire Hathaway

#16 JP Morgan Chase & Co.

#25 Home Depot

#30 Morgan Stanley

#33 Dell

#34 Boeing

Each of these companies’ problems have been well chronicled of late. While some are facing existential threats, others are fundamentally sound but struggling to cope with the global economic crisis.

What’s truly remarkable about this year’s report is that more than 30 percent of all Fortune 500 corporations are currently stalled. That’s double the 15 percent of companies that struggle in a typical year, according to my research. Of course, this is anything but a typical year. Revenues for the Fortune 500 as a whole were up a measly 0.8 percent, while profits were down nearly 85 percent.

There’s talk that perhaps the worst is behind us and if so, next year’s report should reveal better news. That said, in many of these companies the destructive internal dynamics that rear their ugly heads when growth stalls will wreak their havoc long after the broader recovery begins. Let’s hope their leaders know how to deal with them.