Second Shift: The Inside Story of the Keep GM Movement

A prescriptive guide to business, community, and government cooperation based on the successful “Keep General Motors” campaign

In 1997, General Motors prepared to pull out of Lansing, MI, the home of Oldsmobile for nearly 100 years. In response, an unlikely team of government, business, labor, education, and community leaders joined together to convince the company to stay and invest over a billion dollars instead. The “Keep GM” campaign’s wild success showed how a collaborative approach to solving complex problems could turn a crisis into a mutually beneficial opportunity for an entire region. 

Written by Lansing’s mayor at the time, David Hollister, and based on the documentary feature, Second Shift tells the inside story of the campaign and details how you can implement the “Second Shift model” to bring competing community, business, and policy leader interests together to achieve a common goal. Hollister provides you with takeaways, metrics, and lessons, along with guidelines and a blueprint for implementation, from this successful model, and looks at case studies of other industries and regions that have used similar approaches to keep businesses running and communities vibrant.