After reading Henry Fords autobiographical book “My Life and Work” I realized that he is much more than an inventor/businessman that we usually know him of but also a wonderful and sagacious person - a Role Model for our unique times. Thought I should pen down and share some of his key messages from his book. In these times of growing disparity between rich/poor his points seem so relevant.
A few of them will sound anachronistic or Utopian or not suitable for a services/software business, nevertheless good points to reflect on.
- (On charity) It's easy to give, it's harder to make giving unnecessary
- A determined man can win almost anything that he goes after, but unless, in his getting, he gains goodwill he has not profited much
- A truly prosperous?time is when the largest number of people are getting all they can legitimately eat and wear and are in every sense of the work comfortable. It is the degree of the comfort and not the size of the company's bank balance that evidences prosperity
- The stockholders to my way of thinking ought to be only those who are active in the business and who will regard the company as an instrument of service rather than as a machine for making money.
- (On Govt lobbying) The only time I used Ford organization to influence legislation was on behalf of the birds (providing bird sanctuaries for our migratory birds). Our organization has never been used for any political purpose and never will be. We assume that our people have a right to their own preferences.
While there is nothing like reading the book itself, a few more musings to mull over. I tried to categorize it and give a context/annotation(in italics).
- It is a function of business to produce?for consumption and not for money or speculation. Production for consumption implies quality of the article(product) will be high?and the price will be low.
- We get some of our best results from letting fools rush in where angels fear to tread.
- A manufacturer is an instrument of society and can serve society?only as he manages his enterprises so as to turn over to the public an increasingly better product at an ever decreasing price and at the same time to pay to all those have a hand in his business an ever-increasing wage, based upon the work they do.
- Profit must be the reward for good service, it cannot be the basis and must be the result of service.
- A business ought to start small and build itself up and out of its earnings.....but this?formula of doing good work and getting paid for is?supposed to be too?slow for modern business. According to views on modern businesses at those times , “A good business wasn't one that did good work?and earned a fair profit, but?one that would give the opportunity for floating of a?large amount of stocks and bonds at high prices.”
- Everything is in a flux and was meant to be. Life flows. Business men go down with their business because they like the old way so well they cannot bring themselves to change.
- It did not seem to strike any one as illogical that “money should be put ahead of work”?- even though everyone had to admit?that the profit had to come from the work.
- The only foundation of real business is service.
- The payment of high wages fortunately contributes to the low costs (cost of making a product)because the men become steadily more efficient on account of being relieved of outside worries.
- We will not put up elaborate buildings as monuments of success. The interest on the investment and the cost of their upkeep only serve to add uselessly to the cost of what is produced - so these monuments of success are apt to end as tombs.
- (On increasing productivity) Every time you can so arrange that one man can do the work of two, you so add to the wealth of the country and that there will be a new and better job for the man who is displaced
- I hold that it is better to sell a large number of articles(products)?at a small profit and then to sell a few at a large profit. This enables a larger number of people to buy and it gives a large number of men employment at good wages.
- There is something sacred about wages - they represent homes and families and domestic destinies.
- People whose profits are excessive when measured by any sound standard should be the first to cut prices. But they never are. They pass all their extra costs down the line until the whole burden is borne by the consumer; and besides doing that they charge the consumer a percentage on increased charges. Their whole business philosophy is: 'Get while the getting is good'.
- If you keep on recording all your failures you will shortly have a list showing that there?is nothing left to try - but it doesn’t imply that if one man has failed in a certain method then?another man will not succeed.
- Rushing into manufacturing without being certain of the product is the unrecognized?caused of many business failures.(Ford spent 12 years on Model T - 15+ million Model T units were sold)
- Most manufactures find themselves quicker to make a change in the product than in the method of manufacturing - we follow the opposite.
- Given a good idea it is better to concentrate on perfecting it than to hunt around for a new idea.
- My effort is in the direction of simplicity. Start with an article(product)?that suits(consumers)?and then study?some way to eliminate the useless parts. This will reduce the cost, oddly enough?the process starts with cheapening of the manufacturing.
- Manufacturing is not to be confused with banking and there are far too many businessmen to mix up in banking and for too many bankers to mix up in business. The money has to come out of the shop, not the bank.
- The highest use of capital is not to make more money, but to make money do more service for the betterment of life.
- Borrowing under certain conditions is just like a drunkard taking another drink to cure the effect of the last one.
- (Regarding bankers and lawyers) It is perfectly beyond their comprehension that the price should ever voluntarily be reduced.
- Finance concerns not merely the profit or solvency of a company, it also comprehends the amount of money that the company turns back to the community through wages. There is no charity in this.
- The time for a business to borrow money if ever is when he doesn't need it. If a man's business is in excellent condition and in need of expansion, its is comparatively safe to borrow.
- A?man has to live on a scale commensurate with the service he renders
- In my mind nothing is more abhorrent than a life of ease. None of us has any right to ease.
- If the farmer considers himself as an industrialist, then we are going to have farm products so low priced that all will have enough to eat and farming will become the most profitable of occupations.
- If a man wants leisure?and gets it, then he has no cause for complain.?But he cannot have both leisure?and the results of work
- (On bad effects of rapid urbanization)?Every social ailment from which we today suffer originated and centers in big cities. You will find the smaller communities living along in unison with the seasons having neither?extreme?poverty nor wealth - none of the violent plagues of upheaval?and unrest. A great city is a helpless mass. It lives off the shelves of stores. The shelves produce nothing. City conditions of work and living are so artificial that instincts sometimes rebel against their unnaturalness.?
- The modern city has been prodigal, it?is today bankrupt and tomorrow it will cease to be.
- Charity never led to a settled state of affairs. The charitable system that does not aim to make itself unnecessary is not performing service. It is simply making a job for itself and is an added item to the record of non-production.
- The human race cannot forever exist half exploiter and half exploited. Until we become buyers and sellers alike, producers and consumers alike, keeping the balance not for profit but for service.
- (Ford hired all types of people)?Out of the 7.8k kinds of jobs(unique types of tasks in Ford factories/offices), about 4k didn't require full physical capacity. There were 9563 physically challenged employees, of which 123 had amputated or crippled arms, 207 were blind in one eye, 37 deaf and dump and 60 epileptics, 4 without both legs and 234 with one leg missing
- During one year our profits were so much larger than we expected them to be that we voluntarily returned fifty dollars to each purchaser of a car.
- Ford tractor?prices by year (keeps dropping as Ford achieves efficiency in manufacturing) ?
- Edison's quote on a meeting with Henry Ford -"Impossible" is a description for which we have not at the moment the knowledge to achieve. As we amass knowledge we build the power to overcome the impossible.
- Model T sales (Year, Qty, Price)
1919 - 1.2M - $440 to 355
Staff Technical Program Manager at Walmart Labs India
2 年Truly said. It's the degree of comfort and not the bank balance that evidence prosperity... I feel many investors,stockholders, business men have gone far from a perspective of service .. and it's all money through what all the ways they can.. very less do truly hearted job..