Henry Ford (1863-1947) brought the high-cost automobile to the mass market at a lower cost as the founder of Ford Motor Company. In 1924, he raised his workers wages to $5 a day, which more than doubled the pay rate of most of his workers. It also enabled them to afford to buy his cars and create word of mouth about the products. It also fostered loyalty and retention of employees. This was important to his large assembly lines with specialized skill sets.
Henry Ford credited Franklin Gustavus Swift in his autobiography. Ford did so for giving him the idea for the assembly line after visiting Swift’s plant in Chicago. Ford was impressed with the efficiencies that Swift’s meat packing plants created.
Ford structured the organization to stay in the Ford families’ hands. He also created the Ford Foundation. The mission statement states: The Ford Foundation supports visionary leaders and organizations on the front lines of social change worldwide.
Henry Ford, along with Thomas Edison, were pioneers of the anti-smoking movement. Henry Ford wrote a book in 1914 called “The Case Against the Little White Slaver“. Thomas Edison wrote the foreword which included these words, “I employ no person who smokes cigarettes” The fact that it took almost a century for their viewpoints, even with their fame, platform and resources, to become mainstream demonstrates the significant challenges of creating positive changes in society.
This 1980’s NOVA program documents his life well:
Henry Ford Quotes:
The owner, the employees, and the buying public are all one and the same, and unless an industry can so manage itself as to keep wages high and prices low it destroys itself, for otherwise it limits the number of its customers. One’s own employees ought to be one’s own best customers. Henry Ford Quotes
A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business. – Henry Ford Quotes
One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn’t do. – Henry Ford Quotes
Anyone who stops learning is old, whether at twenty or eighty. Anyone who keeps learning stays young. The greatest thing in life is to keep your mind young. – Henry Ford Quotes
Life is a series of experiences, each one of which makes us bigger, even though sometimes it is hard to realize this. For the world was built to develop character, and we must learn that the setbacks and grieves which we endure help us in our marching onward. – Henry Ford Quotes
Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success. – Henry Ford Quotes
Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it. – Henry Ford Quotes
If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right. – Henry Ford Quotes
When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it. – Henry Ford Quotes
It is not the employer who pays the wages. Employers only handle the money. It is the customer who pays the wages. – Henry Ford Quotes
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. – Henry Ford Quotes
Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently. – Henry Ford Quotes
I am looking for a lot of men who have an infinite capacity to not know what can’t be done. – Henry Ford Quotes
The highest use of capital is not to make more money, but to make money do more for the betterment of life. – Henry Ford Quotes
There is one rule for the industrialist and that is: Make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible. – Henry Ford Quotes
The competitor to be feared is one who never bothers about you at all, but goes on making his own business better all the time. –Henry Ford Quotes
A business absolutely devoted to service will have only one worry about profits. They will be embarrassingly large. – Henry Ford Quotes
A market is never saturated with a good product, but it is very quickly saturated with a bad one. – Henry Ford Quotes
There are no big problems, there are just a lot of little problems. – Henry Ford Quotes
The only real mistake is the one from which we learn nothing. – Henry Ford Quotes
Vision without execution is just hallucination. – Henry Ford Quotes
Don’t find fault. Find a remedy. – Henry Ford Quotes