Quotes From Henry Ford
on Business, Leadership & Life
from Forbes magazine 5/13 enhanced by Peter/CXO Wiz4biz
Legacy. We may think, we all know a lot about Henry Ford: founder of Ford Motor Company. Among his achievements are: 1) making mass production in the form of the assembly line popular, 2) creator of the Model T – which captured > 50% of the market, 3) doubling the wages of his employees to reduce “turnover” & enable them to buy cars.
A Fascinating Character. Ford was a veritable froth of pithy & insightful one-liners about business & leadership – and a fascinating human being, as well. He certainly had his dark side (he seems to have been anti-semitic for at least part of his life, but he was at the same time hugely progressive and forward-thinking in many other ways. For example, he hired African-Americans, women & disabled people long before most other business owners did so, and was passionately committed to the principle of paying good wages to hire and keep the best employees.
Mission. He was a relentless technological innovator, based on his commitment to creating “the best possible goods at the lowest possible price.” He focused on making ongoing changes in design & production that would drive down costs while improving the product. For instance, the inaugural Model T, released for sale in 1908, cost $825 (about $22,000 in present-day dollars); by 1916, he had reduced the cost by more than half – to $360, while increasing safety, reliability & speed. And for better or worse, Henry Ford – more than any other individual – made us a nation of car owners; at one point over half the families in America owned a Ford motor car.
Henry’s Quotes. Here then, for your reading pleasure are inspiring & refreshing quotes from this complex, remarkable man:
There is one rule for the industrialist and that is: make the best quality goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible.
Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success.
Don’t find fault, find a remedy.
Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again. This time more intelligently.
Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t – you’re right.
Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at 20 or 80. Anyone who keeps learning stays young.
Employers only handle the money – it is the customer who pays the wages.
Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason so few engage in it.
The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing.
If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said ‘faster horses.’
You can’t build a reputation on what you are going to do.
If there is any one secret of success, it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own.
Enthusiasm is the energy that makes your hopes shine to the stars.
Vision without execution is just hallucination.
There is no man living who isn’t capable of doing more than he thinks he can do.
A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business.
I cannot discover that anyone knows enough to say what is and what is definitely not possible.
A business absolutely devoted to service will have only one worry about profits. They will be embarrassingly large.
You don’t have to hold a position in order to be a leader.
Quality means doing it right when no one is looking.
To do more for the world than the world does for you – that is Satisfaction.
But he also could be stubborn, “You can have it in any color you want, as long as it is black.”
Comments: What did you think of this? Do you have any Quotes of your own?