Leadership

That is getting some years ahead of the story, but it is control by finance that breaks up service because it looks to the immediate dollar. If the…

There is also the great fear of being thought a fool. So many men are afraid of being considered fools. I grant that public opinion is a powerful…

The man who has the largest capacity for work and thought is the man who is bound to succeed. I cannot pretend to say, because I do not know, whether…

(2) That thinking first of money instead of work brings on fear of failure and this fear blocks every avenue of business--it makes a man afraid of…

In the little brick shop at 81 Park Place I had ample opportunity to work out the design and some of the methods of manufacture of a new car. Even if…

Standardization (to use the word as I understand it) is not just taking one's best selling article and concentrating on it. It is planning day and…

These ideas were forming with me during this year of experimenting. Most of the experimenting went into the building of racing cars. The idea in…

Our purpose is to construct and market an automobile specially designed for everyday wear and tear--business, professional, and family use; an…

Men who are constantly complaining of shortage of time and lamenting the fewness of days in the week--men to whom every five minutes wasted means a…

The business went along almost as by magic. The cars gained a reputation for standing up. They were tough, they were simple, and they were well made.…

Our little wooden shop had, with the business we were doing, become totally inadequate, and in 1906 we took out of our working capital sufficient…

We had been through an experimenting period of five years. The cars were beginning to be sold in Europe. The business, as an automobile business then…

(6) A comprehensive bookkeeping system and a follow-up sales system, so that it may be instantly apparent what is the financial status of the various…

In conclusion we beg to state if there are any prospective automobile buyers who are at all intimidated by the claims made by our adversaries that we…

Now I am not outlining the career of the Ford Motor Company for any personal reason. I am not saying: "Go thou and do likewise." What I am trying…

Indeed, there was some disposition to take this stand. Some of the stockholders were seriously alarmed when our production reached one hundred cars a…

He found eventually that it was a French steel and that there was vanadium in it. We tried every steel maker in America--not one could make…

The company was then five years old. The original factory space had been .28 acre. We had employed an average of 311 people in the first year,…

During the season 1908-1909 we continued to make Models "R" and "S," four-cylinder runabouts and roadsters, the models that had previously been so…

"I will build a motor car for the great multitude. It will be large enough for the family but small enough for the individual to run and care for. It…

Nobody knows how many thousand times it has been asked since. It is asked only because of the failure to grasp that a principle rather than an…

It is self-evident that a majority of the people in the world are not mentally--even if they are physically--capable of making a good living. That is…

It is not possible, without going deeply into technical processes, to present the whole development of manufacturing, step by step, in the order in…

A Ford car contains about five thousand parts--that is counting screws, nuts, and all. Some of the parts are fairly bulky and others are almost the…

The first step forward in assembly came when we began taking the work to the men instead of the men to the work. We now have two general principles…

The net result of the application of these principles is the reduction of the necessity for thought on the part of the worker and the reduction of…

This is a development which holds exceptional consequences, for it means, as I shall enlarge in a later chapter, that highly standardized, highly…

Highland Park now has five hundred departments. Down at our Piquette plant we had only eighteen departments, and formerly at Highland Park we had…

Hardly a week passes without some improvement being made somewhere in machine or process, and sometimes this is made in defiance of what is called…

The factory keeps no record of experiments. The foremen and superintendents remember what has been done. If a certain method has formerly been…

They told us we could not cast gray iron by our endless chain method and I believe there is a record of failures. But we are doing it. The man who…

We used to rivet the crank-case arms to the crank-case, using pneumatic hammers which were supposed to be the latest development. It took six men…

Now a business, in my way of thinking, is not a machine. It is a collection of people who are brought together to do work and not to write letters to…

When we are at work we ought to be at work. When we are at play we ought to be at play. There is no use trying to mix the two. The sole object…

This may seem haphazard, but it is not. A group of men, wholly intent upon getting work done, have no difficulty in seeing that the work is done.…

Because there are no titles and no limits of authority, there is no question of red tape or going over a man's head. Any workman can go to anybody,…

As a matter of fact, the record of business in general just now is such as to detract very much from the value of titles. No one would boast of being…

It is particularly easy for any man who never knows it all to go forward to a higher position with us. Some men will work hard but they do not…

This rating system simply forces a foreman to forget personalities--to forget everything other than the work in hand. If he should select the…

As I have said, everyone in the place reserves an open mind as to the way in which every job is being done. If there is any fixed theory--any fixed…

The suggestions come from everywhere. The Polish workmen seem to be the cleverest of all of the foreigners in making them. One, who could not speak…

Here are some of the suggestions: A proposal that castings be taken from the foundry to the machine shop on an overhead conveyor saved seventy men in…

The old method of making a certain gear comprised four operations and 12 per cent. of the steel went into scrap. We use most of our scrap and…

None of our machines is ever built haphazardly. The idea is investigated in detail before a move is made. Sometimes wooden models are constructed…

When you come right down to it, most jobs are repetitive. A business man has a routine that he follows with great exactness; the work of a bank…

The most thorough research has not brought out a single case of a man's mind being twisted or deadened by the work. The kind of mind that does not…

This salvage can be carried further. It is usually taken for granted that when a man is injured he is simply out of the running and should be paid an…

We have experimented with bedridden men--men who were able to sit up. We put black oilcloth covers or aprons over the beds and set the men to work…

No particular consideration has to be given to deaf-and-dumb employees. They do their work one hundred per cent. The tubercular employees--and…

There is not much personal contact--the men do their work and go home--a factory is not a drawing room. But we try to have justice and, while there…

There is nothing to running a business by custom--to saying: "I pay the going rate of wages." The same man would not so easily say: "I have nothing…

It ought to be the employer's ambition, as leader, to pay better wages than any similar line of business, and it ought to be the workman's ambition…

"What ought the employer to pay?"--"What ought the employee to receive?" These are but minor questions. The basic question is "What can the…

But by no means all employers or all employees will think straight. The habit of acting shortsightedly is a hard one to break. What can be done?…

And now I speak of thanking God, I desire with all humility to acknowledge that I owe the mentioned happiness of my past life to His kind providence,…

Thomas was bred a smith under his father; but, being ingenious, and encouraged in learning (as all my brothers were) by an Esquire Palmer, then the…

I disliked the trade, and had a strong inclination for the sea, but my father declared against it; however, living near the water, I was much in…

Josiah Franklin, and Abiah his wife, lie here interred. They lived lovingly together in wedlock fifty-five years. Without an estate, or any gainful…

There was another bookish lad in the town, John Collins by name, with whom I was intimately acquainted. We sometimes disputed, and very fond we…

My brother had, in 1720 or 1721, begun to print a newspaper. It was the second that appeared in America, and was called the New England Courant.…