Michelin

"Buoyed by the success of Bendix, assured of the superiority of the textile production apparatus, confident in the efficiency of the organization he has established, Fayol thinks that the time has come to establish the product’s notoriety with the public—so synonymous with quality that it now deserves to bear the name of its inventor. He is convinced that, like Renault, Citroën, Michelin, the surname Boussac should be associated with his fabric. In 1953, he presents his idea to the great industrialist: — I must speak to you about advertising. Boussac first takes on a closed expression, but he listens to his general manager who continues:"

"During their eighty years in Russia the Nobels and their band of Scandinavian expatriates were industrial miracle makers in a primitive land. They built armament factories in the wilds of northern Russia, expanded a small St. Petersburg machine shop and foundry into one of the largest enterprises in the country, developed and marketed the Nobel wheel—the Michelin of its time—devised new tools and procedures for assembly-line production, exhibiting in all their undertakings an active and continuing concern for their workers’ welfare—as unique a concern in Russia at the time as it was in the rest of the world."

"Obviously, the rise of the American currency, boosted by Ronald Reagan, should allow it to better navigate the situation. The exports of the European subsidiaries to the United States were planned, at the beginning of the seventies, based on a dollar oscillating between four francs eighty cents and five francs. By the end of 1980, the American currency was at four francs twenty cents. In January 1981, it oscillates around five francs eighty (after nearing six francs twenty in August). On the other hand, the investment program—which luckily was carried out with an undervalued dollar—is, if not completed, at least largely underway. In the units of Greenville, Anderson, Spartanburg, the break-even point has already been reached. In Dothan, it is approaching. Only the Lexington plant, which has just been commissioned, weighs on the results. In the current state of affairs, the creation of three new plants in Texas—and for which land has been purchased in Austin, Midland, and Temple—can wait. If the American automobile market picks up, the third Canadian plant in Waterville, also in Nova Scotia, which will be commissioned at the end of 1982—the largest, it is said, that Michelin has ever built in the world—could suffice to bridge the gap[47](private://read/01jkqdqdgs7t399cyecbezrhj0/#ftn_fn47)."

"Michelin, ultimately, is irreducible, atypical. A planet that only revolves around itself. “The company,” confides one of its senior executives, “ultimately no one knows how it operates, which makes it advance at a hellish pace.” The more one tries to understand it, the more it eludes, the more it seems elusive. “Ask a centipede how it moves,” jokes François Michelin himself, “and it will get a headache.”"

"Incorruptible, blending in, tough on the job, and not talkative, they gradually invest in the factories and offices under the authority of Pierre Michelin and Pierre Boulanger. “The two Pierres,” said André Citroën, “on whom I will rebuild my temple.” The salaries of the main collaborators are authoritatively cut by thirty to thirty-five percent. Expense reports are scrutinized. Company cars are removed. Michelin, who before getting involved in the business had the Traction tested in Montlhéry, in Auvergne, and even in Sweden, knows the weaknesses of the model perfectly and knows they can be corrected quickly."

"Until the “Monory liberation,” the head of Clermont-Ferrand continued to complain about the damage caused by price controls and lamented the speed limits on roads decided without consultation. In August 1976, he set out to denounce the reform of the company and the taxation of capital gains. In June 1978, in front of his shareholders, he opposed the project of employee participation in company management, which “risks undermining the authority of managers” and leads “inevitably to the establishment of a parallel hierarchy that would have the opportunity to introduce dissent, would cause the loss of a great deal of time and, more than anything else, would set men against each other.” The company sent a lengthy note to the Ministry of Labor to demonstrate the futility of granting powers to unions that they reject. When the Nixon administration took measures — of questionable constitutionality, as will be seen later — to prevent Michelin tires manufactured in Canada from entering the United States, François Michelin discouraged the Élysée from intervening. Everyone has their own competencies and areas of action."

"In Clermont-Ferrand, the old Carmes workshops and the Estaing storage center, built on the eve of the war, were joined in 1924 by the gigantic Cataroux factory, today still the largest in the group. Outside of France, over the years and protectionist regulations, Bibendum has established itself in Great Britain, in Stoke-on-Trent (1927), opened a spinning mill in Italy (1927), and expanded in Germany in Karlsruhe (1931). It’s a lot."

"It is necessary to learn to distinguish between what is important and what is trivial. The shabby facades of Place des Carmes, the monastic offices with lime-coated walls, the outdated furniture, the pencil stub that must be returned to get a new one, the envelopes turned over and re-sent, the memos written on the back of unsold or misprinted road maps, the stamp “Michelin & Cie” instead of a personal signature, the business card without any mention of academic titles, decorations, or even functions—all of this must be forgotten, it is incidental. On the other hand, the cleanliness of the workshops, the purchase of the latest equipment, suggestions for improving productivity or making savings, that’s what’s important. This is what will advance the Company, allow it to raise its “temperature” (commercial penetration in internal jargon). In these immediate post-war years, Michelin is the first industrial company in France to acquire an electron microscope imported directly from the United States."

"In 1906, Michelin, presenting itself as “the king of tires and the tire of kings,” set up a factory in Turin where the Fiat group was beginning to grow in influence and where French manufacturers Clément and Peugeot had created subsidiaries. Alphonse Daubrée, a great-grandson of the founder of the factory, an engineer from the École Centrale who began his career at the Belgian chemist Solvay, took over as the director of the factory. From generation to generation, the Daubrées would henceforth reign as masters on the other side of the Alps at the direction of the Società per Azioni Michelin Italiana[10](private://read/01jkqdqdgs7t399cyecbezrhj0/#ftn_fn10)."

"This work of preparation for constantly different tasks can only be done in the motherland. Clermont-Ferrand is the place where “in a perpetual work of training, the common know-how” of engineers, technicians, workers, salespeople, managers is forged. In the capital of Auvergne exclusively, far from the Parisian viruses that could contaminate it. “The day the House leaves its walls, it will lose its soul,” says François Michelin. And the basic training—the famous Michelin “internship”—which targets sharp minds and strong characters more than well-filled heads, consists of addressing a concrete problem. “Engineers who enter the factory are assigned to address questions whose solutions are not found in books or speculative reflections, but in the field. They must go and find them there, and for that, know how to look, listen, spot a detail, cross-check information, ask questions that allow going further, change perspectives, and reduce the problem to a set of well-established facts upon which one can finally reason and build. And if reasoning leaves room for several solutions, it is ultimately experience that will decide.”"

"“My job,” said François Michelin to his colleagues, “is to make sure that everything done in the House, everything you do, is done well. It’s about ensuring that throughout the factory, the fundamental imperatives of respecting the customer, serving the customer, and striving to find the best way to satisfy them are well understood. When things are complicated and I’m not sure how to decide, it’s to that compass that I ask where the north is… Regarding everything you see around you, you must ask yourself what the customer would think about how we use the money they give us. Each time something is wasted, unnecessarily complicated, inconsiderately dispersed, or time is taken, we must hear the customer reproach us for selling our tires too expensive.” And to clarify: “If the customers are satisfied, the Boss knows he can make the House thrive and maintain the shareholders’ trust.”"

"The next step is to push hard for the development of the automobile. In December 1922, Michelin launches a major “National Survey of Popular Automobiles.” Thousands of posters are pasted on the walls of major cities, thousands of flyers are distributed. Michelin explains that in the United States there is one car for every ten people; in France, one for every one hundred and fifty. Across the Atlantic, it is a work instrument, manufactured in large series. In France, it is an external sign of wealth. A Michelin brochure, printed at the same time in tens of thousands of copies under the title The Automobile Will Increase the Productivity of Our Commercial Travelers, demonstrates to its readers—based on the experience gained by the Manufacture whose representatives make their rounds by car—that “using the automobile will increase your turnover and consequently your profits.” A new brochure follows in August 1923, printed in six hundred thousand copies: They Want to Kill the Automobile."

"Reassured, on October 8, 1931, André Citroën went—with Pierre Bourdon, one of Edouard Michelin’s sons-in-law—to make a pilgrimage to the United States, to discover the new production lines and models being prepared in Detroit, despite the crisis. To “fill up on oxygen” as well. Speeches, toasts, Champagne, the most dynamic industrialist in France meets, discusses, gets photographed, proud as a schoolboy, with the French ambassador Paul Claudel, with President Hoover, with Henry Ford 1er."

"In 1897, the shareholders of the Clermont-Ferrand business—the Daubrée family, Adèle Michelin the mother of the two brothers, and her sister Émilie Mage—renewed their confidence in Edouard Michelin. He had their agreement to invest as much as necessary in the production of automobile tires. The capital was increased to one million six hundred thousand francs on March 28, 1897, divided into three thousand two hundred shares, and then to two million on November 2 the following year (and four thousand shares)."

"André gave the character a voice, made him practice every sport, every profession, every clownish act. He inflated or deflated at will, smoked cigars, danced the waltz, transformed into a puppet, spoke in front of a blackboard. He conducted an orchestra in London, entered the arena in Spain, or participated in a rodeo in America. Always good-natured, full of humor, in dazzling form—thanks to the Michelin Exerciser—and devilishly pedagogical."

"In the spring of 1924, on the same themes, Michelin put up posters calling for revolt on the walls of the capital, in shop windows. Booksellers, pharmacists, jewelers, grocers are mobilized. Mainly those who have their store near bus terminals and high-traffic stations. Onlookers laugh together. Drivers and conductors too. (Or they are targeted.) Michelin sends two vehicles mounted on tires to “cut” the convoy of the President of the Republic on his way to the Longchamp Grand Prix. And, by chance, it gets filmed by the newsreels. A letter is sent to all Parisian city councilors."

"In December, Citroën is absorbed purely and simply. And Michelin becomes a shareholder with about ten percent of the Peugeot-Citroën group. François Rollier and Jean-Claude Tournand return to Clermont-Ferrand. This time, definitively, François Michelin cuts ties. The manufacturer no longer carries the automotive burden while remaining Citroën’s exclusive supplier. And for Peugeot, a majority supplier (about sixty percent of its supplies). Michelin can finally concentrate its efforts on what it knows and what it is made for: tires[41](private://read/01jkqdqdgs7t399cyecbezrhj0/#ftn_fn41)."

"Sabeau-Jouannet is a law agrégé. He has been head of litigation at Société Générale, financial director at Saint-Frères, and director of the Private Real Estate Bank (The bank in which Michelin holds an important business card). Under appearances of good-naturedness and simplicity, he is a man of extraordinary intellectual fertility. He loves juridical-financial constructions that seem impossible, unprecedented operations. He writes a lot, thinks aloud, confounds his close collaborators with his freedom of spirit and brilliant ideas."

"In France, with the same fever that, ten years earlier, had driven the automobile, aero clubs, municipalities, chambers of commerce, and newspapers organize competitions, distribute trophies, and push the challenges ever further. And the sporting public—very receptive to advertising campaigns—is enthralled by the exhibitions offered to them."

"The latest reason for Michelin’s stagnation: the arrival of the Japanese. In this field too, as in the automobile industry, Japanese manufacturers have come to shake things up. For the moment, Bridgestone, Yokohama, Sumitomo, and other Toyo brands represent barely more than two to three percent of the entire American market. But the percentage is misleading. Nearly twenty-two percent of the cars sold in 1981 in the United States were Japanese and equipped with Japanese tires. With technology that has made fantastic leaps in a few years, Japanese manufacturers have concentrated their efforts on certain regions of the United States and on high-end tires. Notably in the heavy-duty segment (where they make up about ten percent of the second-hand market)."

"The Michelin and Boulanger have refused to sit in the luxurious armchairs offered to them. They are wary of these offices too close to the Seine and too reminiscent of the opulent areas of the 16the arrondissement. They preferred to settle with their rubbers and pencils in the accounting departments to scrutinize the balance sheets and operating accounts. And above all, to take the temperature of this company, gauge its working methods. They left on tiptoe, leaving some of their own men on site, these “economists,” so quickly despised in the company, who are tasked with curbing general expenses, controlling cost prices, and restoring a firm and disciplined hierarchy."

"The Company is large, but the customer is its prophet. In 1976, François Michelin sends his best wishes to his staff: “For the House I have only one wish to express That everyone, wherever they are in the factory Acts by putting themselves in the place Of the one who will buy the product of their work Let’s think that the House must be built every day. Good work, Happy New Year, Good health to all.”"

"The quality of its products and research. The radial tire has been and remains the ultimate weapon. Since the development of the X tire, its competitors have had no choice but to align themselves. And the company has always had a prototype in reserve, a major innovation ready to be released on the market. Because the product mystique has always taken priority over financial constraints. The company’s total commitment to its technical advancement has allowed it to accumulate fantastic experience and maintain a lead. It has also enabled it to have excellent productivity. In 1981, Michelin is undoubtedly the tire company with the lowest production costs compared to all European and American competition."

"From the first cannon shots, Michelin offers its assistance. On August 6, the two brothers offer one million francs “to honor at the end of the war the services rendered to the country by the heroism and skill of military aviators” (the committee responsible for awarding it will be dissolved in 1917). On August 20, they write to the Minister of War to “offer France one hundred Breguet bomber aircraft frames that they will manufacture,” with the State providing the engines, and furthermore, they commit to building at cost all aircraft that could be produced in their factories for the needs of national defense."

"Sears Roebuck, the largest American retail and mail order chain (eight hundred and fifty stores and a catalog distributed in eighty million copies), offered Michelin in 1965 to sell its tires, because it refused, it explained, “to have cheap tires like its competitors and instead wants to consider the clientele.” Sears set only one condition: the Michelin car and truck tires it would distribute not only by mail order but also in its shopping centers must bear the group’s brand in this field: “Allstate.” To conclude the deal, Andy Bush, the buyer responsible for tires at Sears, came to Clermont-Ferrand. Before giving his agreement, François Michelin requested a fifteen-day reflection period. The company had never, unlike many of its competitors—especially American ones—accepted selling tires under a brand other than its own. Ultimately François Michelin accepted. America is well worth a mass. Sears is the third American business in the replacement tire market (after Goodyear and Firestone). It sells about ten percent of all tires purchased by American motorists. And one in four families has an open account with Sears."

"The entire organization from one end of the hierarchy to the other is imbued with a somewhat sordid penny-pinching spirit that contributes to Bibendum’s thriving health. Boulanger grants full authority to a spending control body—the dreaded “service des économes”—composed of about twenty inquisitors who constantly clash with the “spendthrift” initiatives of department heads in all areas. Despite the occasional bouts of bad temper caused by the pettiness of these rule-obsessed fanatics, no one would think of challenging the authority of the “Boss”—always capitalized as in Clermont—put in place by the mysterious and distant head office. Nor that of his two deputies, Antoine Brueder, who handles organization and personnel selection, and Pierre Bercot, who is in charge of the firm’s general secretariat, production planning, and financial and commercial management."

"Arnaud, the chief assembler whom Edouard sent to follow the race from start to finish, has exerted himself tirelessly. Especially at the end of the course, he took turns with Terront’s manager to ring a large cowbell bought along the way, each time their man closed his eyes. Edouard will soon appoint him chief of manufacturing, in the “A” service as the initial of his name[5](private://read/01jkqdqdgs7t399cyecbezrhj0/#ftn_fn5)."

"The following year, Michelin purchases a nine-thousand-hectare concession in Dan-Tieng, near the navigable river that, eighty-five kilometers downstream, flows through Saigon. A second concession, the following year, also in Cochinchina, of fifteen thousand hectares in Thuan-Loï."

"To put an end to the defiance from these overzealous officials, André Michelin invites André Tardieu, then Minister of Public Works, in 1928 to come to Puy-de-Dôme where Michelin had been able to mark out “his” territory at will. Some forty engineers and technicians from the Bridges accompany him. Michelin asks them to give their opinion in writing."

"Firstly, the style: “There is no possible success without authority in action. And there is no authority without the independence of the leader.” Because it is he who will have to be accountable. One must beware as of the seven deadly sins of anything that could hinder his freedom of maneuver. Those who hold power must be freed from all unnecessary constraints. Even at the risk of making mistakes. Edouard Michelin had inscribed at the entrance of the Factory: “The Factory doesn’t need leaders who never make mistakes.”"

"The first is the primacy of the product. Never, at any point in its history, has Michelin ceased to maintain a comfortable lead over all its competitors: the release of the Pilote tire in 1937, the development of the X tire during World War II, and then its release in 1948, are just the most prestigious milestones in the history of its research offices."

"For their purchases of butcher products, deli meats, groceries, bakery, clothing, hardware, etc., the employees of the company are encouraged to go through the cooperative. They can also have their meals at the “Coopé” restaurant. They can receive medical care at the Michelin surgical clinic of Neuf Soleils, the tuberculosis dispensary, the dental clinic, the Chanat rest home, all institutions controlled by Bibendum. The company maintains an entire team of nurses and general practitioners and specialists, from birth to death. From the “birth kit” given to expectant mothers to the formalities with the funeral services. It provides dowries for daughters and helps pay for the sons’ studies. It offers loans to young married couples, breastfeeding bonuses, rewards to those called to serve in the military, and grants repayable advances “in case of difficult situations.” Its social service pays for masses in memory of the deceased."

"In Parisian circles, André will soon repeat that “with one hundred million, it is possible to manufacture five thousand airplanes, and this can be done in a year.” Later, the Michelin brothers will explain the deep reasons for their campaign: “By our profession and thanks to our Frankfurt am Main subsidiary, we were in the front row to know the Germans well. In direct competition with them every day in France and abroad, we were struggling worldwide against their travelers, whom we always found supported — happy merchants — by the German consul of their region. We could not doubt that the war was wanted, prepared by the leaders, and that the rest of the population would follow by discipline, as one man. Even the socialists, even the Rhinelanders, naturally peaceful. It is because the war seemed certain and imminent to us that we felt compelled to make all our efforts to hasten the development of aviation.”"

"The company is locked down. From all sides. The fear of indiscretion, of “chatter” is constant, omnipresent, obsessive. The workshops and laboratories where the alchemy of the X tire is developed are hermetically protected from any external contact. No visits from anyone: shareholders, customers, suppliers, officials, or even retirees from the company. Michelin is an unbreachable enclave."

"SINCE the arrival of the socialists in power in France, Michelin has become even more secretive. Roger Quillot, the senator-mayor of Clermont-Ferrand, is at the Ministry of Urban Planning and Housing. Pierre Dreyfus, the former president of Renault — Citroën’s former enemy — is at the Ministry of Industry on Rue de Grenelle. The communist Charles Fiterman, Minister of Transport, intends to favor the SNCF at the expense of road transport. The Communist Party demands to include Michelin on the next list of nationalizable companies. François Michelin, who apparently had little affinity with previous Elysée teams, now resides on his lands, erecting new walls. Last June, before his shareholders, he once again expressed concern about “the gap that often exists between industrial and economic reality and the perception that political circles have of it.” Once again, he went to war against “the scarcity of savings and especially the abusive use of credit, not for the creation of means of production but for financing that is not a source of wealth, such as state deficits, consumer credits, excessive working capital of companies.”"

"To house the workers, Michelin offers them accommodation in the housing societies of the low-cost housing corporation it controls. Modest houses with gardens — appreciable advantages for workers who, all or almost all, are former peasants or sons of peasants — in Lachaux, l’Oradou, la Pradelle, la Plaine, Chanteranne, which are organized around a grid of streets with names preaching civic and moral virtues: rue de la Bonté, de la Confiance, de la Volonté, de la Persévérance, de la Tempérance, de la Charité. Employees and department heads are housed separately, in buildings constructed for them. Two barracks are reserved for bachelors. Michelin owns a good half of the land in the agglomeration."

"8° The permanent cultural revolution. It is the safeguard against vanity and superiority complexes. “The truth,” teaches Michelin, “is fluid and no one has a monopoly on it.” Or again: The truth in industrial matters always has a date. To have the sense of this relativity, one must live in tune with the facts, “facts that are always right and that are the arbiter of all discussions.” Golden rule: observe, measure, watch, inquire, listen by going into the field to meet those who have “first-hand knowledge” of reality. The facts invite constant questioning and constant modesty. “Anyone who can originate true progress has the right to be right against anyone.” Non-commissioned officers deserve to be listened to as much as marshals. A worker or engineer, a draftsman or an accountant can call the Boss directly. And the Boss himself goes into the field[35](private://read/01jkqdqdgs7t399cyecbezrhj0/#ftn_fn35)."

"In the OCX workshop, where the new radial tires were being manufactured, the staff was pulling their hair out: one out of two tires was defective. The most challenging part was finding the right rubber to hold the braided wire. Cutting the wire at different angles was done with hand shears. During curing, the wires were not always in place. Often, they crossed. The manufacturing inspections—X-rays—were disastrous. Robert Puiseux decided: “Keep going anyway. We will scrap half of the production if necessary. Or more.” Progress came after the big strike of 1950. During the two-month conflict, the rubber stored under the sheds aged. When it was used again on the machines, surprise! It was easier to work with and held better. It would not be forgotten."

"“Among the coachmen, there are clever ones who, without ever having tried the tire, declare themselves its opponents. There are also pranksters and brutes who burst the tubes during stops or at night. The Michelin maintenance teams, tireless, carry out the changes. “But true progress, boldly supported, always ends up triumphing. By the end of 1896, more than three hundred cabs on tires are running in Paris and working at full capacity."

"Michelin’s complaint: In France, people too easily indulge in the delights of the “café du Commerce” to chat, without having any say or the elements to discuss, the general policy of a business and its strategy. Public authorities, in particular, give trade unionists who do not bear, do not want to bear, and cannot bear any responsibility in the “management of companies” and even more “wish to destroy the market economy,” exorbitant prerogatives. As a result, dialogue is impossible (the legal structure of the Michelin group does not allow staff representatives to sit on the governing bodies)."

"In 1921, André and Edouard proposed the “million prize” to promote long-endurance engines. In 1922, they created a prize of fifteen thousand francs “for the development of gliding.” André multiplied conferences on “the German danger” or on “chemical warfare and aviation.”"

"“On the fourteenth of July, Louis XVI, upon learning from La Fayette about the fall of the Bastille, exclaimed: ‘But this is a revolt!’ ‘No Sire,’ replied the marquis, ‘THIS IS A REVOLUTION.’” “We have confidence that the bicycling public will say of our pneumatic: ‘This is an improvement, NO, THIS IS A REVOLUTION.’”"

"2. The selection of personnel. “Bib” has never been for everyone. As long as it remained a provincial SME, the Clermont-Ferrand firm was able to rely heavily on the substantial reservoir constituted by the local workforce. It was able to choose at its discretion those who best suited its needs. For about twenty years, despite its expansion in all directions, it has always managed, by establishing itself in rural or lightly industrialized areas, to find the workers, technicians, and managers to support its rapid expansion. By continuing to recruit them not exclusively based on pure intelligence criteria but also by betting on their adaptability to the company and its peculiarities."

"François Michelin sets foot in the firm in Colombes in June 1965 by purchasing the shareholding of the American group B.F. Goodrich, which had started to open a subsidiary in France as early as 1910. A somewhat convoluted financial operation, at the end of which it is noted that Michelin holds, through the Société des procédés industriels modernes and Bergougnan—two businesses it controls—over 25 percent of Kléber, the second-largest French tire company and the first in manufactured rubber."

"Like Edouard, the model, the former Beaux-Arts student spends most of his time with engineers on prototypes or in factories with workers and technicians. To do better, always better, ever better, one must stay ahead, prioritize new ideas, and if necessary, not hesitate to show non-conformism. Boulanger is convinced that Citroën must be the Michelin of the automobile industry. And without vast resources, he will accomplish the impossible mission entrusted to him by “the Boss”: never allow Citroën to be outpaced by another brand[21](private://read/01jkqdqdgs7t399cyecbezrhj0/#ftn_fn21)."

"“Since we can no longer sell tires, let’s sell something else,” the Michelins decide. All the materials gathered under the hangars or in the yards, to build a new factory in Cataroux, north of Clermont-Ferrand, accumulate as the construction site is halted. There are already piles of wood, cotton, machines, tons of scrap metal. Selling them would allow for paying salaries. The idea is immediately accepted. The house’s salesmen, the employees—from the janitor to the engineer—hit the roads to sell off all these useless stocks. For cash. The fresh money that comes in saves the company."

"As early as September 1914, Michelin also had the agreement of the military high command for the control of all new aerial firing devices. His bomb launcher becomes the reference model for all types of aircraft going to the front. General Gallieni—whom the Michelin brothers will later continuously pay tribute to for his foresight and decisiveness—signs the decree in January 1916 allowing the creation of the Aulnat aviation field, which will become the bombardment school (it will be taken over by the American aviation). A “hard” runway constructed, at the initiative of the Michelin men, “in the axis of the prevailing winds.” Another first."

"Contradiction between its isolation and its global dynamism. Located in a hard-to-access region (Clermont will likely not be connected to Paris by highway before the end of this decade), far from car manufacturers, major universities, financial institutions, and national and European political assemblies, Michelin nevertheless manages to find in this loyalty to its roots the sources of its originality, strength, and common sense. Its expansion is largely explained by this fierce determination to draw fully and abundantly from its own earthy and rural roots."

"Today, Lucien Mâle and his team give themselves three years to accomplish the impossible mission: restoring the financial balance on sound bases. It should cost the Michelin group another six hundred million francs (a third of which is devoted to encouraging “voluntary departures”). Kléber will progressively integrate into the Michelin sphere. Through its products, which will be entirely renewed by drawing on Bibendum’s experience; through its management methods, which will quickly be brought in line with those of Clermont; and through its people, to the extent that Kléber’s decision centers will be closely connected with those of the parent company."

"The same year, to his medalists of labor, he explains: “Behind the contract that binds you to the House and the House to each of you, there is a moral contract, a contract of trust that binds us to each other with our clients and which is the true foundation of the work… The true boss is the client. We are on the same side of the barrier, you and I. We depend on the client’s choice who is in front of us.” And to note: “We cannot levy anyone with little blue papers like those of the Ministry of Finance. We are never in a position of strength… It is the client who makes the payment.”"

"Regimes come and go, crises follow one another, and people change. In Clermont-Ferrand, the Rome of the Michelin empire, the obsession remains: the tire. Nothing but the tire. And not just any tire: “The best at the best price.” For nearly a century now, Europe’s most secretive company has set its rhythm, calibrated its clock, and adjusted its ambitions according to this passion that borders on mysticism."

"And its ideas on military aviation, as the battles intensified, will have prevailed, despite the reservations and inertia that the two brothers will have had to overcome. In 1915, twenty squadrons of Maurice Farman and Voisin are specifically tasked with going to bomb enemy lines. In 1918, it will be recognized that the bombing squadrons — there will be thirty-two by the end of the war — will have carried out numerous attacks, destroyed encampments, factories, marshaling yards, canals, ports. And the airplane, definitively, will supplant the airship. Michelin will have won “its” war[17](private://read/01jkqdqdgs7t399cyecbezrhj0/#ftn_fn17)."

"François Michelin also knows that he still has much to do to consolidate the foundations of his own house. Everywhere in nearly all the markets that Bibendum has conquered through sheer effort, Bridgestone, the new Japanese tire giant, threatens to establish itself. The Japanese brand supplies half of the Japanese automobile production, which became the world’s largest in 1980 and 1981. In the United States, it quickly delivered to Michelin’s customers at a time when Michelin was out of stock. It plans to purchase the Firestone plant in Nashville, Tennessee, and increase its production capacity to 3,000 truck tires per day in 1983. In Europe, it is laying the groundwork, making contacts, and beginning to supply Scandinavia, Great Britain, and West Germany. It, too, is eyeing Formula 1. The result: a wild growth, as fast or faster than the French group over the past five years, with revenues of three billion dollars in 1980 (nearly seventy percent of which was from tires) achieved with only thirty-one thousand employees, gross self-financing margins of twenty-five percent, and a net profit nearly twice that of Michelin in 1980. Bridgestone, in recent years, has also surpassed General Tire, Uniroyal, BF Goodrich, Continental, Dunlop, and Pirelli to occupy the fourth place worldwide. A formidable challenger."

"Next, the organization of the company. It must be designed to allow each person to exercise their responsibility as best as possible by tailoring their workstation to measure. “It is understood, once and for all, that people come before structures, or rather that a structure derives its legitimacy from the people who make it live.” Rather than “too clearly defined” schemas that would freeze individuals, their situation, their responsibilities, it is better for the organization to continually evolve. The company is a living organism, not a monument. “Nothing is blocked at Michelin. No one is confined to an a priori definition. The organization of the House at a given moment is not the design of an architect. It is the result of a long and obscure work in depth.”"

"In the early thirties, in an attempt to establish a captive market, the company that launched the rail tire in 1929 ventured into the manufacture of railcars. Its clients were the old enemies: the railway companies. The firm partnered with Electro-Mécanique, a subsidiary of the Swiss group Brown Boveri, Carel and Fouché, and the Billard establishments to exploit an American license. Michelin produced the bogies, suspension, and bodywork of these “Michelines” that would soon run on the state, P.O.-Midi networks or in Madagascar. It collected a royalty calculated based on kilometers traveled and, of course, equipped each car’s twenty-four wheels with tires. In 1939, one hundred twenty-five Michelin railcars were in service in France, in overseas territories under French sovereignty, and abroad. They covered more than thirty million kilometers. They traveled as far as the Netherlands, Czechoslovakia, or Poland. Michelin proudly proclaimed: “The tire provides the Micheline with excellent adhesion to the rail and very light weight. No jolts, no noise. After three hundred kilometers in a Micheline, you are not tired.”"

"“Gentlemen, you are in a private house. Our ambition has never been in peacetime other than to produce the best tire that meets the needs of motorists. Naturally, we have our manufacturing secrets and research secrets. Traditionally, as you know, our factories are not visited. That said, Gentlemen, you are the victors, you may enter. But, I believe you are men of honor. It is up to you to decide.”"

"After long hesitation about what action to take, François Michelin provided some support to the ailing company. Executives from the parent company were “injected” into Bergougnan. Technicians came to finalize the development of various products: steel-reinforced conveyor belts called “Bergacier,” offshore hoses also with steel reinforcement, etc. However, the installations as a whole were outdated, management was too precarious, and Michelin did not intend to indefinitely burden itself with this enterprise, which could offer nothing in return. And Bergougnan, to keep its factories running, had engaged, at the beginning of the sixties, in a price war that greatly troubled its competitor Kléber. The circumstances were therefore favorable for François Michelin and Paul Huvelin, then head of Kléber, to meet."

"With synthetic rubber (the rubber route is cut off), Michelin also manufactures tires for the Wehrmacht. Tires that the House’s engineers designed to crack at low temperatures. In front of Stalingrad or elsewhere on the Eastern Front, the assault troops’ trucks occasionally find themselves mysteriously immobilized. The Nazis had forgotten: the tire is also a “strategic product.”"

"3° The incursion, forced and constrained, into Citroën was only justified insofar as, according to the phrase attributed to François Michelin, “the automobile is just an accessory of the tire.” It only remained possible as long as the Javel firm could grow by its own means and did not hinder tire development. The day it became apparent “as dead weight on its flanks,” Michelin set out to get rid of it."

"Reinhard knows Dr Grimm well, from the Credit Anstalt Bankverein of Vienna, the Austrian state bank and the main shareholder of the leading Austrian tire manufacturer, Semperit. The Credit Anstalt is seeking an aggressive alliance for Semperit. And as the Austrians observe Michelin’s growth in Europe, they are ready to discuss the possibility of a rapprochement with the French group. Especially since Michelin, in the past, has sold its X tire license to Semperit and still supplies it with cables for its steel radial production."

"“What is most original about Michelin,” explains a brochure produced by the personnel department to present the group, “is perhaps the seriousness with which we consider certain obvious truths. The first of these truths is that we manufacture and sell tires, that these tires are judged by the customer, and that it depends on them whether the Company lives or dies. Satisfying the customer is therefore our goal, and all decisions are made with respect to this objective. Everything that does not bring us closer to it is eliminated without debate. From this, many savings, large and small investments chosen regardless of prestige or fashion, and of course, a whole legend that sometimes turns into a caricature. From this also comes the widely shared feeling among the staff that their efforts must genuinely serve the interest of all and that they are not working for trivialities: every year tens of thousands of suggestions allow for the elimination of unnecessary actions, unnecessary expenses, and unnecessary fatigue. At all levels, everyone has the right and the duty to judge their work based on this criterion.”"

"Since the ties were broken with Citroën, Michelin has done even better. Although it is no longer the first in France — only the tenth, with its thirty-two and a half billion francs in sales in 1980 — it is preparing to become the first in the world for more than three generations in the industry to which it has devoted itself, body and soul, tires[1](private://read/01jkqdqdgs7t399cyecbezrhj0/#ftn_fn1)."

"Consequences: 1° The obligation of rigor. “It is strictly essential that the manufacturing process is defined in a rigorous manner and that this definition is applied without deviation to all production units. It is also strictly essential that raw materials are chosen by a single technical authority, purchased from proven suppliers, that equipment is designed for all factories by specialized services, and that checks are carried out in ways that leave no room for differences in assessment.” 2° Mono-production, Michelin should only produce tires, nothing but tires (with the sole exception of wheels, maps, and guides). It should neither disperse its forces nor waste its resources like all its global competitors do. Any diversification would be a distraction. Michelin should do its job well, optimize its experience, and see it through to the end."

"A flaw remains. Citroën has high-end models that sell well but nothing in the lower range anymore. By the end of October 1935, Pierre Boulanger requests the quick development of “a car capable of carrying two farmers in clogs, fifty kilos of potatoes or a barrel at a maximum speed of sixty kilometers per hour, with a consumption of three liters per hundred kilometers.” Starting all problems from scratch. And achieving an affordable solution: “No more than the price of a motorcycle,” requested Edouard Michelin. So, less than eight thousand francs, a third of the price of the “11 CV”. A pittance (the production cost will never be less than nine thousand five hundred francs). Boulanger limited himself to specifying that “aesthetics were of no importance.”"

"A new and perhaps decisive element: in 1967, Michelin presented the ZX, more universal than the X and better suited to the powerful and fast cars of those vroom-vroom times. A boost in programs: five new factories in 1971 on the European continent; Bamberg, Hamburg, Trier in Germany, Fossano, Alessandria, Turin (Stura) in Italy. In 1972, seven factories. By 1974, Michelin had forty-five factories around the world and its production had quintupled in fifteen years. L’Express hailed Michelin as “one of the greatest builders of the Western world.”"

"One thing is certain: the jovial figure with plump shapes, who would change silhouette with the pencils of Poulbot, Philibert, Fabiano, Mich—the official poster artist for Peugeot—and a few others, found his name on a day in July 1898 after the Paris-Amsterdam-Paris race where the automotive champion Léon Théry greeted André Michelin with a cheeky “Look, there’s Bibendum.” The onlookers present found it amusing, and Michelin, always on the lookout, immediately came up with the brilliant formula."

"“Then, it’s the turn of a stable of five cars. With the help of these first references, we secured twenty cabs. “Jealousies intervened. The other drivers noticed that their colleagues on tires had better days than them; they couldn’t accept that the ‘buddy’ earned more. “‘Let Michelin take back its tires!’ they clamored. “It took prodigious cunning and patience to make these good people understand that there is another, more advantageous way to level gains: it’s for everyone to ride Michelin. “The public, for its part, began to seek out these rare vehicles, these ‘rolling salons’ whose silence and comfort seemed extraordinary, but it took just one flat tire to irritate the customer, who became the laughingstock of onlookers and other drivers."

"9° The monarchic and absolute centralism. Michelin is the only company of this size that has retained since its origins the status of a partnership limited by shares, common in France at the beginning of industrial capitalism. This setup allows for an extreme personalization of power. As a result, it enables real decision-making speed and a wide delegation of responsibility. There is no need to convene a board of directors, an executive board, or a management committee to locate a new factory, accelerate production, or launch an international loan. The manager simply needs to give the green light. Power at Michelin is not collegial. It is monarchical. And the monarch, who risks their fortune, their name, their reputation, governs. Responsible for their actions infinitely — over all their own assets, past, present, and future — they have no other ambition than to succeed. Otherwise, there is no escape, no safety net, no excuses."

"On December 21, Citroën files for bankruptcy, and the commercial court of Paris declares the judicial liquidation. The Lazard Bank, which is the largest creditor among all financial institutions, asks Michelin, the largest creditor among the two thousand four hundred industrial suppliers, to take charge (André Citroën owes eighty-two million to his tire supplier)."

"6th The law of silence. The affairs of the company do not concern anyone outside the company. It is its private life. Any indiscretion would be suicidal. A good employee is a silent employee. “It takes our engineers ten years to produce a new tire or develop a new machine,” explains François Michelin, “but five minutes are enough to understand the process used, hence to copy it and potentially put our employees out of work.”"

"Each collaborator is specialized, compartmentalized. They know very little about a mixture, a process, or a knack. Those who have seen the manufacturing process from A to Z can be counted on one hand. When engineers or managers become friends, they are transferred to distant and opposing locations to separate them. The internal promotion path never allows one to know an entire manufacturing cycle. Michelin hires sons, brothers, or cousins of workers. Rarely the children or close relatives of its managers and engineers. Almost never the cousins or great-nephews of the founders. Whether close or distant, descendants forbid themselves from talking about what they know about the history of the House and the great ancestors. Spouses agree before marriage to have their mail read by the heirs of the direct line."

"Edouard wants nothing to hear of it. The tire, just the tire. Let us not get distracted. Parisian sirens are seductive but dangerous. In response, he writes back to his brother. “We have too much to do with our tire to embark on anything else; besides, this industry is thrilling, it will revolutionize the world. I am like you, I cannot resign myself to seeing it grow without contributing to it a little. What if we clearly posed to this new tool a well-understood and striking problem, for example: passing over the Arc de Triomphe and landing like a sparrowhawk on the summit of the puy de Dôme, triumphing over both the distance, four hundred kilometers, and altitude, one thousand four hundred and fifty-six meters.” The engineer refines and completes the idea. “Yes,” he confirms to Edouard, “that will capture imaginations, but let’s add an annual prize for the longest distance flown in the year without touching the ground.”"

"Therefore: “All the forces of the company must be aimed at serving the client. If the clientele is satisfied, the company has every chance of being healthy; otherwise, it is doomed.” We must never lose sight of the fact that “His Majesty the client,” according to an expression commonly found in the company’s brochures, is free in their choice. “The freedom of consumer choice engenders the fertility of the company in a market economy and the prosperity it brings to all.” It is necessary not only to “do better than others but also to do better than yesterday and prepare to do tomorrow what seems impossible today.”"

"What he places above all: “Intellectual honesty.” The kind that creates duties more often than rights. As a boss, he must set an example. Like Bonaparte at the bridge of Arcole or Joan of Arc before Orléans. He must be at the forefront of his troops, the symbol of the firm and the virtues that have allowed it to rise to the top ranks globally by itself. If he travels by plane, it’s in economy class. In Paris, he takes the metro, lives in a small apartment in the 17the arrondissement, and has lunch with his tray at the canteen of the offices on Avenue de Breteuil, like any secretary or maintenance service agent."

"Technical progress — and God knows the firm will produce many during these years: hydropneumatic suspension, hydraulic gearboxes, power steering, disc brakes, double braking circuit, etc. — must evolve “the very conception of the automobile.” Citroën must be the best in the world. On essential matters. Not on the sidelines."

"Nevertheless, difficult years. What keeps us going are the new heavy-duty tires launched successfully: three hundred trucks and vans equipped with Michelin tires in 1919, three thousand in 1921, thirteen thousand in 1923. Their main asset: prices. While the prices of solid tires keep soaring because natural rubber is becoming scarce and its trade is monopolized by Anglo-Saxon companies, tire prices are decreasing."

"Strong clever shedding. Founded in Clermont-Ferrand by Raymond Bergougnan in 1889 — it’s the era of the English cyclist assisted in the courtyard of the Michelin factory — the Bergougnan business developed for half a century without overshadowing its large neighbor, doing what was respectfully said to be “industry as a farmer.” Starting with rubber stamps and then launching into bicycle tires under the brand “Le Gaulois,” it engaged in the manufacture of solid truck tires during World War I, and by 1937, stepping on the heels of Bibendum, who then frowned, it had turned — with an American license — to tires, both for cars and trucks. In Auvergne as well as in Parisian circles, it was whispered that it also held substantial interests in rubber plantations in the Far East."

"While the Americans carry out less stringent manufacturing controls and prefer to smilingly give a brand new tire to the dissatisfied customer, Michelin professes an unwavering faith in its control and rarely admits that one can invoke a failure of its products. This mindset drives it to take a very strict position that customers often judge as ‘non-commercial’: Michelin is always right.”"

"“The policy of the Michelin House, which no longer needs to prove itself, is to retain the current models by incorporating all the most modern improvements while maintaining — what the clientele desires — their very economical character and solid qualities. “The customers for a model that is safe, solid, and very manageable will not be lacking. It is to them that the Citroën car is intended, and it is to them that the Michelin company, which today has taken on the responsibility of leading this automotive business, addresses itself with full confidence and the certainty of not being outpaced by any brand.”"

"Born in Paris in 1892, Robert Puiseux is the son and grandson of astronomers. The war interrupted his studies when, as a “taupe” at Lycée Henri-IV, he was preparing for Polytechnique. His passion for mountains led him to meet the Michelins. Two years after the marriage of his sister Marguerite with Jean Michelin, André’s eldest son, he married Anne, Edouard’s third daughter. Tested like everyone else, entrusted with various missions, he was ultimately given the responsibility of “the technique,” the heart of the citadel. Punctual, discreet, solid, hardworking, and tireless, the adopted Auvergnat immersed himself in the mold that was imposed on him."

"In the early twenties, it was also necessary to break free from British brokers who control international rubber prices and let them rise vertiginously. Michelin became planters[23](private://read/01jkqdqdgs7t399cyecbezrhj0/#ftn_fn23). Like Ford at the same time in Brazil or Firestone in Liberia. Especially since the bosses in Clermont fear that American tire companies will seek at all costs to secure a global monopoly on natural rubber to ensure the safety of their supplies."

"Another initiative to popularize the House and its products: maps and guides. In 1900, one year after the first Tour de France by car, Bibendum made its first big move: the publication of the first Michelin tire guide, which informed new motorists—wealthy people accustomed to a certain class—about well-kept hotels, good restaurants, and ways “to communicate by mail, telegraph, or telephone.” André Michelin, who created it, intended this red-covered guide for chauffeurs and cyclists, to whom it would be offered free of charge if requested. As it would appear each year in the early days of spring, it would soon become, in the House’s advertising, “the motorists’ Easter egg.”"

"Edouard would later recount: “I had to run a factory with fifty people in it. “Some of the productions were good, another part bad. There were no engineers; only a foreman, who was not capable and only knew part of the manufacturing process. “I was completely ignorant of rubber manufacturing. “The first necessity was for me to learn my trade. I could only learn it by questioning the workers. “So I had to have a conversation with them where I was their inferior, and the best way to get them to talk was to openly and completely admit my ignorance."

"For twenty years, he was the chief architect of Michelin’s international development. Without him, the company would probably never have dared to take the considerable financial risks it did by going into debt (having previously only grown through self-financing). It would not have launched large eurocurrency loans and convertible bond issues that succeeded each other in the sixties and seventies, nor organized an entire financial structure in Switzerland, Bermuda, and the Netherlands to manage its international cash flow."

"5th A common professional instinct. “For units that are more or less distant to work in intelligent coordination with the parent factory, extend or develop actions in concordance with the rest of the system and each contribute to the progress of the whole,” it is necessary that all leaders have “a unity of views, affinities of perception and reflection that can only exist among people who have been extensively trained in the same school.” Because there is a duty of solidarity among all members of the same company. Mutual assistance is a formal obligation."

"Until the “Monory liberation,” the head of Clermont-Ferrand continued to complain about the damage caused by price controls and lamented the speed limits on roads decided without consultation. In August 1976, he set out to denounce the reform of the company and the taxation of capital gains. In June 1978, in front of his shareholders, he opposed the project of employee participation in company management, which “risks undermining the authority of managers” and leads “inevitably to the establishment of a parallel hierarchy that would have the opportunity to introduce dissent, would cause the loss of a great deal of time and, more than anything else, would set men against each other.” The company sent a lengthy note to the Ministry of Labor to demonstrate the futility of granting powers to unions that they reject. When the Nixon administration took measures — of questionable constitutionality, as will be seen later — to prevent Michelin tires manufactured in Canada from entering the United States, François Michelin discouraged the Élysée from intervening. Everyone has their own competencies and areas of action."

"If the “Super Confort” (1932), “Bibax” (1933), and “Stop” tires that “eliminate skidding” (1934) do not yet assert superiority over competitors’ tires, the release of the “Métallic” tire for heavy vehicles in 1936 and the “Pilote” tire for passenger cars in 1937 makes up for the delay. New tire architecture, new materials, new economies. Four layers of metal wires replace twenty layers of cotton. Tire heating disappears, along with the risk of blowouts. The “Pilote” uses ten to fifteen percent less rubber than the previous generation of tires. And rubber accounts for more than half of the production cost."

"The philosophy of the House, in any case, is present: a man, alone at first, who can freely pursue his project to the end, a team that enables him to achieve it, a boss who decides to take responsibility and the House’s heritage in a new direction. Michelin will remember this and find in this discovery, which will give birth a few years later to the X radial tire, a new justification for its choices: priority to technology and researchers who must impose their views, flexibility and mobility of the internal organization, the decisive importance of the Patron at the center of the system[28](private://read/01jkqdqdgs7t399cyecbezrhj0/#ftn_fn28). And, extraordinary confirmation, the “flytrap” being tested around the Carmes factory on a Citroën Traction that escaped requisition offers road holding superior to all the tires on the market and its resistance to wear is excellent."

"And the Encyclopedia of drivers is expanding. After the Battlefield Guides (in 1917) published in French, English, and German (twenty-nine volumes in total) with nearly one and a half million copies (and for the benefit of the work of the French repopulation by Dr Bertillon), André Michelin releases the Guide to Morocco, the regional tourist guides with red covers, ancestors of the current green guides (the Brittany Guide appears in 1926). In 1926, the Good Tables, marked by a particular sign—which would soon turn into a star—are introduced in the France Guide. (The first two and three stars will be awarded to provincial restaurants in 1931 and Paris in 1933.) An Air Guide is released in 1930."

"Nevertheless, it is not with much joy that Michelin arrived at Kléber. The mainly French company had never achieved impressive results. Additionally, a virtually mortal sin for the purist Auvergnats, it had deeply engaged in various fields unrelated to tires. Jack of all trades, master of none! Kléber-Colombes did not limit itself to producing all categories of car tires, heavy trucks, agricultural vehicles, and aircraft. It also included a multitude of conveyor belts, hoses, belts, conveyors, shoe articles, automobile parts, and even, since 1964, a Guide for gastronomic tourists, a modest competitor to the red guide[50](private://read/01jkqdqdgs7t399cyecbezrhj0/#ftn_fn50)."

"This company with the strange corporate name and even stranger activities was founded in March 1931 with capital from Switzerland and Belgium. Its purpose is to exploit in France the patents of the Norwegian engineer Frederik Rosing Bull and his friend and successor Knut Andreas Knutsen."

"And the Michelins, now completely in control of the place, get to work. At all levels, in all areas. Often secretly. Some Bibs, on orders from Clermont-Ferrand, get hired as simple workers to better observe what is happening, diagnose the “leaks” and waste, and prepare the list of “irredeemable” people."

"What he places above all: “Intellectual honesty.” The kind that creates duties more often than rights. As a boss, he must set an example. Like Bonaparte at the bridge of Arcole or Joan of Arc before Orléans. He must be at the forefront of his troops, the symbol of the firm and the virtues that have allowed it to rise to the top ranks globally by itself. If he travels by plane, it’s in economy class. In Paris, he takes the metro, lives in a small apartment in the 17the arrondissement, and has lunch with his tray at the canteen of the offices on Avenue de Breteuil, like any secretary or maintenance service agent."

"Michelin distributes a Practical Manual of Heavy-Duty Tires, floods its customers with advice to economize, accuses trucks fitted with solid tires of cracking buildings and damaging road surfaces. Fewer repairs, more mileage, greater safety, and higher speed: tires have all the advantages."

"The boss is there for the unsolvable problems. He is the guarantor of the company’s long-term interests. No quarterly or half-yearly financial results at Michelin. No information—except under exceptional circumstances—to shareholders outside of general meetings. A policy captive to dashboards, obsessed with short-term performance where fashion fluctuations can have disastrous impacts on the company’s future and its true competitiveness. The Boss is there to scan the technical, financial, social, even political horizon, to ensure that the goals are valid and, of course, that they are met."

"The boss is there for the unsolvable problems. He is the guarantor of the company’s long-term interests. No quarterly or half-yearly financial results at Michelin. No information—except under exceptional circumstances—to shareholders outside of general meetings. A policy captive to dashboards, obsessed with short-term performance where fashion fluctuations can have disastrous impacts on the company’s future and its true competitiveness. The Boss is there to scan the technical, financial, social, even political horizon, to ensure that the goals are valid and, of course, that they are met."

"Michelin puts around sixty million francs on the table. With the shares he receives from André Citroën and the shares of many small shareholders he buys back, he soon holds fifty-three percent of the capital. Long-term arrangements are made with other major creditors."

"For the first time, Michelin came to Citroën’s rescue in 1931. A few months earlier, in a fit of anger, André Citroën had sent back to their studies, the Lazard bank, the administrators, and directors it had sent him, and especially this André Meyer who exasperated him with his advice of caution and moderation. Much poker but a Pyrrhic victory. Nevertheless, Michelin granted a few tens of millions of francs in cash advances."

"Michelin is a labyrinth. The departments are designated by letters known only to insiders: B for buildings, F for research, J for purchasing, LC for French commerce, LE for foreign commerce, K for legal affairs, 0 for wheels, SP for personnel, SL for accounting, T for transportation, etc. There are about fifty such departments, poorly coordinated by another department: the central planning, called PLC, which decides the scheduling of manufacturing. Their heads report directly to the Boss (the “management,” the S department). Workers, technicians, and engineers are assigned a registration number in the company’s telephone directory, and this number often suffices to sign a service note or identify a correspondent on the phone. The raw materials used in the composition of the rubber are also coded with four- to five-digit numbers."

"This time Bibendum intrigues. The newspaper L’Aurore announces that the “factories in Clermont-Ferrand have developed an exceptional tire whose texture, through an armed casing, includes metallic elements.” The article specifies that it “would be capable of running sixty thousand to seventy thousand kilometers, double the normal distance. Considering that the French market is too limited, the Michelin management would intend this tire for export. They are even thinking of directly competing with American production across the Atlantic or participating in a powerful international trust.”"

"In April 1974, Michelin sent Louis-Noël Repoux, the former head of its personnel services and former member of the management, to Lyon to get Berliet back on track and find it a partner. Discussions with Volvo failed: the people from Clermont did not want to let the Swedish group run the business (which was demanding some six thousand job cuts). And the conversations Paul Berliet subsequently had with International Harvester, John Deere, Mack, and Caterpillar also led nowhere. The Lyon-based company found itself with its chronic underinvestment and overstaffing."

"At the center of the system: François Michelin, the “Boss” with, it is said, one and a half percent of the capital of the business, the omnipresent leader of this gigantic “red orchestra” of tire manufacturing driven by the concern to maintain its cohesion, spurred by the ambition to be as quickly as possible, the world’s leading firm while maintaining the quality of its productions, and its technical lead. He is the one who dictates the tables of the law, he who ensures their application everywhere and at all times."

"In 1959, he is the sole master on board. He knows how a tire is made, but he knows nothing about finance, personnel administration, or development planning. In short, about management. Better than others, no doubt, he has measured the fantastic prospects opened by radial technology while most European and American manufacturers are mired, anesthetized. He is aware that the products coming out of his factories bearing his name can embark on the conquest of the major automotive markets. The House has all the cards in hand, provided it equips itself with the men who will give it this international dimension and finds new financial means."

"This is not enough, on February 1er, 1912, Michelin published a brochure under a tricolor cover titled: “Our future is in the air.” Forty pages of testimonials, opinions, and recommendations from military and civilian experts on the importance of the “fourth weapon” in future combat. With this conclusion: “France needs five thousand airplanes, and when we ask for five thousand airplanes, we are also asking for hangars, flying workshops, replacements, trucks, all the elements that will make these devices not cumbersome and useless impediments, but birds always ready to take flight. “It needs: five thousand military aviators, and when we ask for these five thousand aviators, we demand that they not be an unorganized crowd, without status, not knowing where to go or what to do, but a true weapon with its leaders, its pilots, its mechanics, its helpers, all working with the same drive and under the same discipline for the country."

"The philosopher-manager believes only in technology and, as in Clermont, “in fact-finding investigations.” Not in marketing. “Instead of exhausting oneself following tastes and fashions,” he will tell the weekly magazine Entreprise, “we must seek to satisfy the deep and often ignored needs of the public.” In short, making his customers happy without them, even against them. The automobile is a supply market, not a demand market. “A good product, as taught at Quai de Javel and in Clermont-Ferrand, will always find buyers.”"

"And then there is, among all, the cardinal virtue of risk acceptance. There is not a new adventure, there is not a nascent experience that the group has not been interested in and on which it has not immediately gambled big. Technical bets, certainly, but also the gamble of international establishment achieved very early and for the most part before the war."

"3° Success cements success. The pride of belonging to a firm that gains market penetration, releases products whose technology it fully masters and which are considered the best in the world, allows one to endure some oddities and some vexations. Or to forget some annoyances. “While"

"And the products that bear the signature of the House — and the name of the Boss — engage its responsibility. They must be flawless. “We are not here to make money,” declares François Michelin to his staff, as his grandfather already said. “We are here to make the best tires at the best price.”"

"His studies completed, he, like everyone else, dons the work overalls. In 1951, under a false identity, he works as a fitter at the Carmes factory where, in a small workshop, he files pieces of scrap metal to a hundredth of a millimeter “to learn the trade.” He arrives on foot or by bicycle, punctual, anonymous, with a bag on his back. He rotates through different positions: in “secret,” that is to say with the workers on three-shift rotations, for two years, with the “travelers” of the House for his tour of France with garages, with the drivers who shuttle between the factories of Carmes, Cataroux, and Estaing."

"The Auvergnats, they sneer, are getting cheap publicity! The requested performance is impossible. “It will not be before fifty years that such a feat will be realized,” estimates part of the press. Michelin sends the “aviators” to their deaths, accuse the aviation people."

"Starting in 1911, Michelin no longer limited itself to prophecies and warnings. On August 22, the two brothers wrote again to the president of the Aéro-Club of France to propose the creation of a new prize called the aero-target. They offered fifty thousand francs to the aviator who, in a single flight, would place fifteen projectiles weighing twenty kilos each from a height greater than two hundred meters within a ten-meter radius circle. They also offered twenty-five thousand francs for a drop from a height of one thousand meters within a rectangle of one hundred meters by ten."

"To put an end to these “malevolences,” Michelin puts “the price of honor” on the table: two hundred thirty million francs (thirty billion lire). The amount of investments supported by Fiat as a Citroën shareholder. The operation will be neutral. They will part as good friends."

"Among the major technical milestones, the removable tire, the detachable rim (1906), the twin wheel (1908), the pilot tire in 1937, the X tire in 1948."

"Translated by engineers working with André Lefèvre, this idea of the “minimum automobile”—intended primarily for farmers and craftsmen—would become the famous quip: “An umbrella on four wheels.” After the “fact-finding surveys” conducted under the direction of a Central School engineer, Duclos, among ten thousand people to identify the real needs of this modest clientele targeted by Boulanger—the first automotive marketing experience and perhaps the secret of the car’s exceptional longevity—the TPV, or “very small car,” gradually emerged from limbo."

"Michelin is the tire company that dedicates the most money to research each year. And this, undoubtedly, for a good half-century."

"When necessary, the company never hesitates to spend fortunes on plane tickets, industrial robots, or ultra-sophisticated measurement equipment."

"Significant progress in cost prices allows lowering selling prices. The company chooses its commercial policy: “Sell the best tire at the lowest possible price.” It will remain faithful to this."

"Since 1920, Michelin has started populating France with “angle markers” in reinforced cement whose four faces are covered with enamelled lava plates, a stone from Auvergne known for being indestructible. Unlike the official plates of the Administration, the names of the localities and the road numbers are visible from afar, therefore convenient for hurried motorists. The Bridges and Roads sulk."

"Let us quote from L’Aurore: “By instituting this trial, our great national rubber manufacturer strikes us as a cold humorist-joker. This first demonstration of his humor should unanimously earn him the honorary presidency of the deadpan club whose creation we recently announced.”"

"The Paris Transport Company gives in. Michelin can once again congratulate itself on using its favorite weapon: “The Customer.” An informed user is one who puts pressure on reluctant intermediaries. And manages to make them bend."

"“The Parisian small car company requests the equipment of four hundred cabs. “Three months later, it equips one thousand four hundred and fifty. The battle is won. The tire for horse-drawn carriages becomes mainstream. In 1903, there are six thousand cars on tires in Paris.”"

"The Michelin guide, the foreword specifies, would be made with the help of “chauffeurs.” It emphasizes: “Without them, we can do nothing, and with them, we can do everything.” It promises to “ruthlessly remove from the lists all hotels whose table, room, W.C., or service they report as defective; poorly stocked fuel depots; and Michelin stockholders they have had serious complaints about.” A prophecy along the way: “This work appears with the century; it will last as long as it does.” Michelin has no doubt about its future."

"Since the early twenties, factories have been organized in the American way, based on a fundamental principle: task timing. Michelin has become an ardent advocate of Taylorism among French employers. “So that the worker tires less, earns more, produces more, and the price of manufactured goods decreases.” Leading by example, it has shown its peers how to construct, with minimal effort and maximum profit, a brick wall or install a faucet."

"Finally, and paradoxically, what strikes me in the history of Michelin is the opposition between the jealously guarded secrecy over the design and implementation of the product and an undeniable and sometimes revolutionary taste for information and public relations. The managers who refused entry to their workshops to General de Gaulle were also the heirs of Edouard Michelin and, like him, managed, year after year, from Salon to Salon, to always maintain public interest and often by making them smile."

"As often as possible, the company prefers to integrate rather than jeopardize its independence. It has its own plantations, cable factories, and machine manufacturing workshops. When it cannot produce its equipment itself, it disperses its suppliers and subcontractors to the four corners of France by assigning each of them a fragmentary task and obliging them, in writing, to maintain secrecy. But in return, it pays them cash on the first day of the month following delivery, grants them low-interest or even interest-free loans."

"In 1976, François Michelin sends his best wishes to his staff: “For the House I have only one wish to express That everyone, wherever they are in the factory Acts by putting themselves in the place Of the one who will buy the product of their work Let’s think that the House must be built every day. Good work, Happy New Year, Good health to all.”"

"If the Administration, the two brothers believe, is clogged with men who prefer adherence to regulations over common sense, it is because the State is a bad employer. “When an employee in a private enterprise is inadequate or commits a serious error, the sanction is clear: it’s the door. “And this sanction has a triple advantage: “It serves as an example to the mediocre. “It prevents recurrences. “It makes room for advancing the man of value. “The State does nothing similar: it keeps the incompetent, it preserves their seniority-based advancement, and even better, it decorates them! Hence, it discourages the good ones.”"

"Sixty years later, the same analysis and the same language. In 1979, an internal note accused certain politicians and senior officials of wanting to introduce parliamentary democracy into the internal life of the company. Others, it said, make the company an object of “electoral lust.” While surrounding the business world with their “greedy considerations,” the political personnel, for ages, have been busy multiplying procedures, committees, and artificial regulations. They have interfered in areas that are the exclusive responsibility of the business leader and the people to whom he delegates his responsibilities."

"Across all latitudes, the company has a visceral aversion to waste, to anything that might appear, however remotely, unnecessary or ostentatious."

"Here is a book that reveals the inner and secret aspect of a French and global company. It began in Clermont-Ferrand around 1884 with the manufacture of brake blocks lined with rubber for horse-drawn vehicles. Today, it constitutes the second largest tire group worldwide and is on its way to becoming the number one, thanks to the spirit of the House: tenacity, creativity, secrecy in design and manufacturing, rigor in management, and a sense, often humorous, of advertising: the now-legendary Bibendum; the red-covered guide with its stars; road signs."

"Conversely, in the name of these same principles of rigor, Michelin can also push its errors or blind spots to their ultimate consequences. Always knowing in the end — the Citroën affair was the best example — how to behave like a great gentleman, paying the bills and resetting the counters."

"The company cannot trust an “irresponsible” press that eagerly seizes confidential data, indulges in false news or biased interpretations. And what’s the point anyway? We should care as much as a fig about theatrics, trends, and what people might say. Michelin doesn’t stop at others’ opinions. “We are not theater people,” confides a member of the management. “We don’t need a stage, nor decorum. We are people of laboratories, industry, and business contacts.”"

"an English tourist arrives in the yard of the factory on Place des Carmes. A cart drawn by oxen brings his bike, whose tires have just burst. Instead of going to Torrilhon, who is known in Auvergne as the specialist in solid and hollow bands, he goes to Michelin. An extraordinary coincidence, even if the address given by a passerby was correct: the Carmes factory also used to manufacture, until very recently, solid or hollow rubber tubes for bikes."

"Under the pretext of preserving its manufacturing secrets and the work of its research offices, it satisfies the minimum legal requirements regarding informing its shareholders, does the bare minimum in its interactions with its clientele, while reacting suspiciously towards others. By refusing to notice that it also depends on its distribution networks, its image with financial markets, the stock exchange, mass media, political power, trade unions, and ultimately, the vox populi. Such an attitude can only hold as long as the company makes a flawless journey, and the political environment remains on the sidelines."

"In Clermont, the engineers of the company do not want to hear about the “Salmon 200 HP” engines sent by the Ministry of War to equip the Breguet-Michelin. They demand the most powerful and lightest engines possible “to rise quickly, fly long and with certainty.” The only ones matching what the Michelin people want are those manufactured in Billancourt by Louis Renault. Moreover, the planes need to be equipped with bomb launchers and sights capable of carrying four hundred kilos of projectiles with a range of four hundred kilometers. These proposals are finally accepted. Very quickly, André Michelin obtains the demobilization of the engineer responsible for tire manufacturing who is in Auxerre. He will organize, in record time, the production for the Minister of War. Five versions of these Breguet-Michelin will be studied, and two models—equipped with Renault engines—will be mass-produced. When the war ends, seven planes will leave the workshops of Clermont-Ferrand each day. A fantastic pace."

"The two brothers stop at a tobacconist, buy two sheets of stamped paper (“success is often made of these small details,” the House would later comment). They invite Terront to lunch, treat him royally, and after liquors and a cigar, propose that he try the “Michelin detachable.” Three hours later, convinced or still half dazed, Terront signs the contract."

"With thirty thousand employees — one-fifth of the population of Clermont-Ferrand — gathered over a few dozen square kilometers, Clermont-Ferrand is today, after Sochaux-Montbéliard, the largest industrial conurbation in France. A concentration comparable to those that the German giants of chemistry or metallurgy have built on the banks of the Rhine but with entirely different organizational methods and mentalities. “Michelinville,” buzzing with uncontrollable rumors, crossed by deep currents difficult to manage, has today become ungovernable. But how to successfully carry out the necessary decentralization of the capital of the empire — and at the same time, the modernization of certain workshops — knowing that Auvergne, according to Pr François Perroux, is seen as the “Michelin Region”?"

"And since automobile manufacturers—except for Louis Renault, who created an aviation department within his own company—are doing nothing for aviation, since scientists, some clergy, and politicians enjoy disparaging these “extravagant young people who defy gravity,” it’s best to make a big move. Even more spectacular than that of Archdeacon and Deutsch de la Meurthe! The Company, in any case, will perform an excellent operation."

"Because the two brothers learned that the two favorites were secretly going to race on Dunlop tires and with pacemakers, the day before the competitors passed, workers from the company scattered nails on the road in several places. The Auvergnats don’t catch flies with vinegar. Result: two hundred and forty-four punctures “quickly repaired, Michelin boasts, for those who respected the rules.” Q.E.D."

"The Michelin Cups - with new regulations - reappeared in 1921. In France, but not in Great Britain. They would last until 1931. In ten years, the average speed of their annual winner would increase from ninety-six kilometers per hour (Martinetti in 1921) to over two hundred fifty-four kilometers per hour (Hagelen in 1931). From 1926 to 1928, a special cup was planned for the military, exclusively on bombing aircraft."

"Well, we’ll see. If François Michelin acquires these 25.2 percent of Kléber’s capital, he intends to, on the other hand, stay on the doorstep. He warned Paul Huvelin and his right-hand man on Avenue Kléber, Manuel Béraldi, that he would leave them completely free rein. No question of “nurturing” the business by providing any technical, industrial, or commercial support. Especially no osmosis between the teams (the Parisian air is not necessarily good for Auvergne lungs). The two firms must remain as foreign to each other as if they were evolving in two different galaxies. There will not even be a Michelin representative on the Kléber board of directors."

"As a noble gesture, Bibendum also installed “village signs,” displaying the name of the town at the entrance of the community between the messages “Please slow down” and “Beware of children,” along with orientation tables. Not forgetting to inscribe “Gift from Michelin” on them, as a way—quite inexpensive—of integrating into the essential landscape for motorists, while also advertising⁠[9](private://read/01jkqdqdgs7t399cyecbezrhj0/#ftn_fn9).⁠"

"The fact remains that Europe is up for grabs for any tire manufacturer ready to invest in it. And Michelin, although advancing on all fronts at a breakneck pace, cannot cover the entire ground. If it doesn’t try to fill the great void between the Vosges and the Oder-Neisse line, American, German, British, or Italian groups are likely to rush in. Already, in December 1972, Marc de Logères, who leads the Compagnie financière de Bâle, announced in New York the ambitious program that Michelin intends to carry out in the United States. Bibendum cannot chase two hares at once. It becomes urgent to find a partner for Kléber."

"On the other hand, the situation in passenger car tires is catastrophic, with installed capacities (eight million tires per year) being excessive compared to demand. The brand image, since the blows from UFC, has seriously deteriorated. Technicality, cost prices, and methods are lagging behind the competition. The size of the company no longer allows for amortization over sufficiently long series, which is necessary for research and development. And the all-out commercial policy was more focused on volume than on profit. Kléber’s commercial expenses, the people from Clermont note with horror, are twice those of Michelin!"

"At the armistice, Michelin will be able to boast of having manufactured in its factories and with a female workforce, “one thousand eight hundred eighty-four planes — one hundred forty-seven of which will have been delivered to the American army — eight thousand six hundred bomb launchers and three hundred forty-two thousand bombs of various calibers, twenty-seven thousand seven hundred of which to the American army. Furthermore, Clermont-Ferrand will have manufactured “three hundred thousand rubberized coats, five hundred thousand rubberized gloves, five hundred thousand feed bags, two hundred fifty thousand tents, two hundred thousand sleeping bags.” Bibendum will have earned the appreciation of the “rookies.” An investment for the future."

"At Quai de Javel, the new owner makes sharp cuts. Six thousand layoffs—five thousand workers and one thousand white-collar workers—are decided by Pierre Michelin. No more family scions (those called “hickeys”), no more secretaries overly concerned with their elegance, no more workers whimsical about their schedules, no more expenses that aren’t absolutely necessary, no more adventurous epics, no more fanfare. André Citroën’s closest collaborators are thanked and let go. The parent company in Clermont-Ferrand continues to send—often in “submarines”—some of its trusted men to reorganize the business from top to bottom, take back control of the staff, and identify overly disruptive unionists."

"As in Egypt, Bibendum had to wait a long time in front of the door before being authorized to enter the Brazilian market. The first contacts with Brasilia date back, it seems, to 1975. In April of that year, two Michelin executives, Jean Bollotte and Daniel Lejeune, were received by Delfin Netto, former Minister of Economy, then Brazilian ambassador to Paris. The group, they said, would like to build five manufacturing plants on the same site. To do so, Michelin would invest one hundred and sixty million dollars and export a notable portion of its production. At that time, Brazil was still experiencing strong growth. “The truck market,” François Michelin would explain to his shareholders a few years later, “is twice as important as in France. Trucks cover a thousand kilometers a day, and tires last three months.” A new Promised Land."

"WITHOUT the green light given at the end of 1935 by the patriarch of Clermont, the Bull Machine Company would have died a natural death, four years after its birth. And French computing would have had to take other paths to begin its launch. In the autumn of 1935, the main shareholders of the Bull Company, specialized in the production of punched card accounting machines, are worried. At Avenue Gambetta, at the headquarters, the directors meet in a conclave to decide whether, failing to reach a balance in their accounts within a reasonable time frame, they should ask the State for help or simply sell the business to IBM. A minimum of six million francs is needed to bail it out."

"Without a word, the “engineer-builder” who had introduced modern automobile industry to Europe, allowing France to maintain its technical leadership in this cutting-edge field, gathers his personal belongings and leaves. “A very great industrialist but a debatable administrator,” said a former governor of the Bank of France about him."

"François Michelin’s explanation today: “The House paid the price of years of war where it was necessary, instead of thinking about the tire the customer needed, to hastily manufacture the planes the country needed. We had fallen behind the competition. The years when we couldn’t focus on the customer were terribly difficult to catch up, and when the crisis came, we were not ready. We were not ourselves.”"

"Can Michelin for that matter celebrate? Not at all. In 1976, François Michelin told his shareholders that his operations in the United States would bring profits within two or three years. “I am,” he said, “in the same situation as Boeing at the end of the fifties when Lockheed was raking in profits but Boeing had machines ready to roll out in its hangars.” In the early eighties, profits were still awaited (the MTC likely lost about fifty million dollars in 1980)."

"On his turf, most of the work is done. Bibendum, popular and dynamic, reigns supreme. One by one, he managed to convince car manufacturers to pay more for their tires by guaranteeing them, in return, quality and longevity. Michelin is the number 1 at Renault (which stopped tire manufacturing in 1955), at Peugeot, and of course, still one hundred percent at Citroën. Despite its higher prices and imperial commercial methods — you have to comply with its conditions or risk not being delivered[37](private://read/01jkqdqdgs7t399cyecbezrhj0/#ftn_fn37) — it already represents more than half of replacement sales."

"It is necessary to dip into the reserves and scrape the bottom of the barrels to survive. The “genius” of Edouard, nevertheless, during this period when everything seems oddly upset and irreparably broken, will be to believe improvement possible. With the energy of his early days — he is seventy-one in 1930 — he launches large research budgets. Observing the accumulated delay coldly, he decides to revisit many questions from scratch. Rather than making improvements — what Edouard calls “doing pastry” — to products that clearly do not provide satisfaction, it is better to redo fundamental studies on materials, on the architecture of tires, on tests. Efforts that will not pay off for several years. He knows this, but the Company works in the long term."

"Most importantly, for the first time, with the “Métallic” and the “Pilote,” a tire company achieves perfect adhesion between rubber and metal. Through direct bonding, it seems, after a surface treatment of the steel wire. It is the “secret of secrets” of the House."

"The survivors of the initial hiring tests are subjected to a battery of assessments. Future travelers are asked to build a bridge over the Tiretaine—a small river that runs through Clermont-Ferrand—to identify the best candidates. Future managers, summoned at five in the morning to a woodworking shop, are given a “dovetail fitting” to complete in three hours, to point out to those who fail the test that it would have been better to spend half an hour thinking before grabbing their tools. A law student candidate is asked to specify the difference between a ladder and stairs, to repeatedly catch the stick thrown at them to see where their catching hand lands, and their reflexes are tested by maneuvering a tracing point to follow a rapidly moving line."

"The technicians’ training lasts two, three, or five years. It is inspired by methods developed by a Swiss-origin psychology consultant—the only consultant likely ever engaged by the House—Dr. r Carrard. His basic principle: the apprentice must be left to find solutions to increasingly difficult problems on their own. This obstacle course is intended to identify individuals with a sense of initiative and a taste for responsibility through concrete and practical cases."

"Absolute master of Citroën, Bercot aims high and strives to take different paths. At no cost should cars be made like others. It’s necessary to create a gap, to advance with technological leaps. He holds nothing but contempt for his competitors and especially for those American firms that produce standardized models covered in chrome and barely capable of driving on highways at sixty miles an hour. He aims to release cars that are original and advanced enough for their production to last several decades. “We must fight,” he says, “against this escalation of gadgets and these superfluous modifications that characterize brand industries.”"

"No yachts, lavish receptions, hunting reserves, or gambling tables. In his view, you cannot exhort thousands of people to save money, accelerate their work pace, or expand their responsibilities without the boss — Primus inter pares — himself adhering to the community’s Spartan disciplines."

"The only one to content itself, like an early-century SME, with two pillars, central planning and personnel service, around which is organized a vague and shifting constellation of about thirty departments, generally left to the discretion of its leaders."

"“Outside of orthodoxy,” says an engineer, “you no longer exist. But you are never certain, due to the fragmentation of power and the lack of guidance on the Company’s general policy, of having the trust of your superiors.”"

"Edouard, the manager, gives in. And Michelin will be the first among the hundreds of tire manufacturers that exist in the world at that time to attempt adapting the new product to the automobile."

"It’s a success. The signage commission of the ministry adopts the corner marker at intersections. Michelin will be able to mark thousands of kilometers of roads with thousands of markers, direction posts, signals, orientation tables that constitute exceptional advertising material for the brand[22](private://read/01jkqdqdgs7t399cyecbezrhj0/#ftn_fn22)."

"The Michelin schools—there were eighteen in 1950—take children from the age of two, preparing them for the certificate of studies, the elementary certificate, or the teacher training colleges. “The Mission,” the boys’ apprenticeship school, molds future “Bibs” with the company spirit. They learn there that “the tire is a factor in the enhancement of the world.”"

"He is the most famous and powerful boss in France. He reigns over an empire that extends from Indochina to Argentina, from Scandinavia to the African bush."

"To the point of absurdity: in the early 1950s, the managers preferred to let a fire spread in the workshops rather than let the city firefighters and their equipment in."

"Michelin can control everything, everything is to its scale, and everything depends on"

"The system is motivating. “Would you, asks François Michelin, go on a plane piloted by remote control? When a pilot must save their own skin, they simultaneously save that of their passengers.”"

"In all establishments, American executives, engineers, and technicians have been required to spend time in Clermont-Ferrand— with their families, if necessary — to breathe the air of the Maison, learn its methods, and measure its state of technical advancement. These “training” sessions lasted from three to eighteen months."

"Because manufacturing is “a job full of surprises,” due to the large number of components, the complexity of the manufacturing process, as well as the “unforeseen challenges that the behavior of the rubber presents to the most experienced.” What Michelin calls “the whims of the material.”"

"The doctrine is to trust those who have responsibilities and can change them “as long as they have not failed.” Among the executives, and especially among the house engineers, one would have to have committed the gravest offenses to be dismissed. However, using familiar terms is frowned upon: it risks conspiracy against the boss! Naturally, there is no budget forecast, no cost accounting, no management control, no internal information. However, in production, technology, or research, there are ultra-competent teams who are given great freedom of action and in whom there is absolute trust."

"7° The requirement of economy. There should be a focus on eliminating waste “that benefits no one.” Since the resources of the House are limited, only what can be useful and help it progress should be considered: essentially, research. “The profit of the House goes first to the House. In this way, everyone works for their future.”"

"The Company is large, but the customer is its prophet. In 1976, François Michelin sends his best wishes to his staff: “For the House I have only one wish to express That everyone, wherever they are in the factory Acts by putting themselves in the place Of the one who will buy the product of their work Let’s think that the House must be built every day. Good work, Happy New Year, Good health to all.”"

"Each week, for eight months, Michelin hammers these themes. New brochures: What the car really costs, Horse and car, The Future of the French Automotive Industry, The Used Car, The Automobile Source of Wealth, The Car against the Crisis."

"The idea of “paternalism from baptism to the grave” was, long before him, the work of great French industrial families, of Protestant belief, such as the Schneider and Wendel, or Catholic, like Peugeot and Michelin, who relied on Christian faith to practice an active social policy. Boussac’s social work takes a different path, in the sense that it is not inspired by religious ethics, but solely by the generosity of the boss."

"At Michelin, where paternalism lasted for a long time — the famous in-house schools with their 6,000 students were not handed over to the State until 1967 — the dominant idea is self-realization. At Boussac, the spirit is to create a sheltered world where everyone’s fate depends on the sole boss."