Henry Ford
Strategic Concepts & Mechanics
Primary Evidence
"Historians do much the same thing. As children we learned that "Andrew Carnegie built the steel industry" and "Henry Ford built the automotive industry." dustry." Carnegie and Ford were, without question, giants. But to suggest that any individual-even a giant-"built" an industry is hogwash. The most any manager can do is shape an environment that allows employees to fulfill the goals of the business."
"Raskob was not much interested in the making and marketing of goods or new products. In that sense, he was nothing like Henry Ford. He built platforms—in his case fi nancial platforms—that allowed companies to grow and consumers to buy."
"Raskob then talked Pierre du Pont into replacing Durant as GM president. In the early 1920s, they partnered with Alfred Sloan to rebuild General Motors. It was Raskob who fi gured out how to beat Henry Ford at his own game by betting on a consumer credit revolution and creating GM’s installment buying arm, GMAC, which allowed car dealers to fi ll their showrooms and millions of people to aff ord GM’s more expensive and stylish cars. Th en, to motivate and maintain the loyalty of GM’s extraordinary management team, most especially the irreplaceable Alfred Sloan, Raskob devised one of the fi rst corporate stock option plans. Th e business press dubbed it Raskob’s “millionaires’ club.” Th e press was not exaggerating; dozens of GM managers would accrue GM stock worth millions (including Raskob); Sloan, who took over as GM president in 1923, eventually made hundreds of millions of dollars. Th e business elite saw Raskob as a visionary who had fi gured out how to get managers of corporate America to act like owners; instead of working only for salary they were working for a share of the company’s profi ts. Raskob’s stock option plan for top managers became conventional wisdom in corporate America."
"the problem with pragmatism is that it rapidly becomes a habit, and short-term gratification – expressed in profits, cash and the praise which goes with them – becomes a drug that drives out long-term customer-related aspirations. It takes a rare visionary – people such as Henry Ford, Ray Kroc of McDonald’s, Ingvar Kamprad of IKEA, and Southwest Airlines’ Herb Kelleher – to insist on rock-bottom prices; or, as with Steve Jobs, fantastic products and a simple, intuitive customer experience. It takes an exceptional person to take on the risk of this approach – the risk of going bust."
"“We have not failed Ford’s trust!” Li Shufu always appreciated Ford’s broad-mindedness and sense of responsibility as a giant in the global automotive industry. Li Shufu knew that money alone could not buy Volvo, and he valued Ford’s trust in him. International media have likened Li Shufu to China’s Henry Ford. As founders of their respective automotive brands, Henry Ford was born in 1863, and Li Shufu in 1963. Interestingly, Geely was founded in 1986, and 100 years earlier, in 1886, the automobile was invented by the Germans."
"Warren Buffett, quoting Henry Ford, often talks about the importance of keeping all your eggs in one basket,"