What steps would you take if you were president and CEO of GM, to return to profitability?

l would hurry to get the Volt into production, stop building gas hogs and re-negotiate with the UAW

Re evaluate the product line, stop making meaningless cosmetic changes from year to year, focus on quality and innovation instead. Toyota lets each model run for 7 years, they improve the vehicle mechanically, dont waste time and resources on the exterior until the new model comes out.
Get some street cred with innovative hybrids, diesels or something like that.

TOO LATE. The damage has been done and no one in head office wants to rock the boat. Executives at GM are so busycovering their collective asses that it is a wonder antyone finds the time to turn on the lights in the morning.
The saddest thing is that an American expert told them decades ago how to run their business and they showed him the door. He went to work as a consultant for the Japanese and look at them now.

Stop paying for exspensive ads and lower the price of the vehicals because people buy lower priced cars.GM has a very attractive line and are going to be the leader by popular demand. l want a new one now.

The previous answer references to a decisonmaker who was shown the door at GM decades ago. If l can begin my discourse at this point l will make the case that minority opinion should be heeded. In a successful business model so often there is a chain of command. The decison making structure is stiff fraught with fiefdoms & kingdoms. It becomes a bureacracy due the power to make final decisons on pieces & parts of the project. For example, the Pontiac Aztek was a shining example of abstract automotive thinking from one of the most talented automotive company to grace the planet. How did they come up with that? Upon his arrival the often quoted Bob Lutz said the Aztek looked like an angry toaster.
Within every organization their is a minority opinion that is valid, but may not have the strength to surface. Another words, it is embedded within the very fabric of the ideals & best & highest traditions of the company, but it can not get out. The man who was shown the door could not get his qualified opinion out because the team made invalid his informed opinion.
The mistake GM has made is the intense competition from within after all of these years, ignoring the competiton around them in the automotive sectors they once dominated. GMs marketshare is analgous to ancient Rome. The land mass kept shrinking & now all that is left is Italy. To ur question about profitability. The Japanese have learned from the American car companies & trumped us at what we do best. They have improved upon it & made it theres. They have literally stole our thunder & lightning. Beyond Bob Lutz, GM has to become a more organic manufacturer instead of a monolithic corporate structure that will someday be at the entry of the Smithsonian diagonal from the T-Rex.
This means that they should seek out the people within the organization who have dissenting opinion & factor in their expertise & advice with a willingness to change in a moments notice because the situation is fluid. GM needs to continue to believe in itself & diversify the brain trust realizing that the competition is Toyota, Mazda, Mercedes & other brands versus showing someone to the door. By the way, as long as GM is still on the field, it is not to late, it is only late in the game & the clock is running out. How many nail biters have u seen that have been pulled off in the last few seconds of competition? Lutz has been a game changer, now they have to see who is the next tandem.
The financial markets do not have anyone or much to bet on from GM. Wagonner has done well, is his best days ahead of him or behind him, same for Lutz. Who is next? Who will be the future of GM? Who is the tandem that will restore GM to it is former glory?
l will leave u with this thought, the Boston Celtics had to answer the same set of questions. What did they do?