“I don’t know whether Napoleon did or did not try to
get across there and I don’t care. I don’t know much about history, and I
wouldn’t give a nickel for all the history in the world. It means nothing to
me. History is more or less bunk. It's tradition. We don't want tradition. We
want to live in the present and the only history that is worth a tinker's damn
is the history we make today.” – quoted by Henry Ford. He has drawn my
attention not only of his successful path but the passion that inspires me a
lot about the great achievement of fantastic and outstanding leader.
 |
| TIME Magazine, January 14, 1935 |
Born in Wayne County, Michigan, on July 30, 1863,
Henry Ford was the oldest of six children. Although he chose to leave the
family farm and pursued his own interests, Henry never strayed far from his
roots. Henry Ford is the founder of the Ford Motor Company and also the
inventor of the modern day assembly line method of production for his Model T
cars. He is also an inventor who has been credited with over 100 patents.
During his time, he was one of the richest people in the world. Today Ford
Motor Company has dealerships all over the world, and is one of the largest car
manufacturers in the world.
As a young boy, Ford took apart everything he got
his hands on; he became known around the neighborhood for fixing people's
watches. As he grew up, he explored every mechanical opportunity he could find,
learning to fix steam engines and run mill operations. In the 1890s, he focused
particularly on internal combustion engines. Success soon came to him as he
took a position in 1891 as an engineer at the Edison Illuminating Company and
fairly quickly climbed the ranks. Greater financial security along with more
freedom to explore his own experiments came with his promotion to chief
engineer in 1893—the same year his only child, Edsel, was born.
Although he had established a solid career with good
prospects at Edison Illuminating, Ford was restless and ready to venture into
the field of automotive engineering, in which he had long been experimenting.
He had confidence enough in his ideas that he believed he could continue to
support his family on them and of course eventually, he proved it right. With
his love for the outdoors and rural values, Ford might easily have remained in
agriculture, but something even stronger pulled at Ford's dream. "Young
man, that's the thing! You have it—the self-contained unit carrying its own
fuel with it! Keep at it!" These early words of encouragement came from
Thomas Edison, who was to become one of Henry Ford's closest friends. At their
first meeting at a convention in 1896, Ford was still an unknown. But the
enthusiasm of the famous and widely respected Edison surely fueled Ford's
drive.
Henry Ford called his first vehicle the Quadricycle.
It attracted enough financial banking for Ford to leave his engineer position
at Edison Illuminating and help found the Detroit Automobile Company in 1899.
The company faltered for a variety of reasons, and in 1901 Ford left to pursue
his own work again. Later that year, the Henry Ford Company was born, but Henry
Ford himself stayed with it only a few months. He left in early 1902
concentrate to refining his vehicles. After a few trials building cars and
companies, in 1903, Ford established the Ford Motor Company. Ford introduced
the Model T in October 1908, was being sold in Detroit. Although there were 87
other car companies in the United States, it soon became clear that Henry
Ford's vision for the automotive industry was going to work. The value that we
should learn from Ford is never head down to the challenges and obstacles that
we face but be brave to face the problems until achieve it successfully.
What made Henry Ford successful where others had
failed (or succeeded on a much smaller scale)? “Think outside of the box” creative
and innovative was his unique understanding of the potential of those vehicles
to transform society. Before Ford, cars were luxury items, and most of his
early competitors continued to view them that way, manufacturing and marketing
their vehicles for the wealthy. Ford's great stroke of genius was recognizing
that with the right techniques, cars could be made affordable for the general
public—and that the general public would want them. Ford focused on making the
manufacturing process more efficient so he could produce more cars and charge
less for each.
Some of Ford's greatest innovations came not in the
cars themselves but in the processes for creating them, like his 1914
introduction of a moving conveyor belt at the Highland Park plant, which
dramatically increased production. Starting construction on the Rouge plant in
1917 was the first step toward Ford's dream of an all-in-one manufacturing
complex, where the processing of raw materials, parts and final automobiles
could happen efficiently in a single place.
Henry Ford had tremendous self-belief and he
constantly preached on it. He would hire workers don’t know the meaning of
impossible and would keep pushing the limits of their imagination. Your
self-belief as a leader is infectious as well. What do you believe about
yourself? What do you believe about your ability? What is possible and what is
impossible? Your willingness to try the impossible will inspire your team push
the limits as well. As long you are willing to change and keep learning
continuously without pause. Treat every challenge as the gift from the god and
face it positively.
Ford was also unique in recognizing that his
business was about more than just cars; it was about transportation, mobility,
changing lifestyles. He anticipated the ripple effect from mass production to
create more jobs that let more people afford the cost-effective cars he
produced. Ford pushed for more gas stations and campaigned for better roads,
understanding conditions necessary for his product to make its mark. A great
leader that has far-reaching vision opened his eyes to the global market,
making Ford Motor Company an international enterprise far earlier than any of
its competitors. At the height of Henry Ford's fame and business power, his
company operated or sold in more than 30 countries around the world, including
such far-reaching places as Indonesia, China, Brazil, Egypt and Europe within
short period.
As an outdoorsman, Henry Ford was deeply conscious
of the impact his industry had on the delicate natural world. He implemented
practices that were progressive for his time—replacing wood with steel to
conserve forests, using lighter materials to increase fuel efficiency, even
prohibiting the use of crowbars to open wooden crates so as not to damage the
potentially reusable lumber. By following his footstep, I have been practicing
“Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” habit in my daily life. Reducing quantity of rubbish
been produced until a small bag rubbish in a week in my home, all kitchen waste
mixed with soil turn into fertilizer and the rest like plastics, glasses,
papers been collected sending to recycle center. My friends always impressive
to my determination behavior nevertheless it is difficult to affect them follow
the good practice.
Henry Ford thinking was returned to a theory calling
Fordism. In the United State, Fordism was based on the philosophy that
industrial management beaded on assembly- Line process of manufacturing cheap,
consistent products in high volume, while winning over workforce’s loyalty, was
a means of ensuring higher reorganizational profit simultaneity while affording
employees the opportunity to buy the products they manufactured, such as
automobile. Fordism became popular around 1910 while describing the success of
Henry Ford and his automobile industry. It shows that the importance of a great
leader creating good values and healthy working culture in an organization.
Henry Ford valued his workers a lot and he showed
that by giving an extremely high pay for all his works in the assembly lines.
As a result, he drew talent from all over the region to work in Ford Motor
Company. Whatever you do as a leader, if you can show that you value each and
every person on your team, you will attract talent from all over the place.
More than just their salaries, people want to work in an environment where they
feel that they are valued and an essential part of the organization. Strive to
give your team this sense of value, whether by means of salary or by
recognition. You can be sure that in the long run, you’ll be drawing strong
people into your organization.
Henry Ford's personal motto of "Help the Other
Fellow" spilled over into his management style; he recognized that
policies generous to his employees would result in happier workers and a better
product. However, he claimed not to believe in conventional charity but he
preferred to provide opportunities for people to help themselves. These are
just some of the liberal innovations Ford implemented within his company:
• Wage of $5 per day for an eight-hour workday,
doubling the industry standard for a day's wages and bringing his hardworking
employees closer to affording the cars they built. Ford considered it’s a way
of sharing the company's profits with all those who had helped make those
profits possible.
• Employment policies that created opportunities for
the physically and mentally handicapped and even ex-convicts.
• A variety of educational facilities at the
workplace, starting with the English Language School at the Highland Park plant
in 1914, when he realized his largely immigrant workforce needed language
skills and assistance.
As Ford Motor Company's public image developed, much
of it began to focus on the personality of the company's charismatic leader.
Ford made a fascinating subject for a variety of reasons. He wasn't a
"behind-the-scenes" kind of executive; rather, he stayed actively
involved in company operations and was frequently on hand at milestone events. This
behavior exactly mentioned by our Chief Secretary (KSN) to urge all head of departments
go down to the ground (turun padang) to see staffs at work to ensure the best
service to the people. As a leader in an organization, we also must look after
the welfare of our own staffs so that they are happy to serve. He had a
forceful, outspoken personality that often expressed itself in highly quotable
remarks. Moreover, his wide-ranging interests led him to explore a variety of
fields—aviation, film, politics (including a run for the U.S. Senate)—that led
to associations with other celebrities and people of note.
Cars were always central to Henry Ford's life: He
built them, he raced them, he sold them. But there was so much more to the man
than his automobiles. He was a man of many interests and had a highly developed
sense of curiosity; he never stopped exploring new fields and learning about
new subjects. In many ways, for many years, Ford Motor Company was inseparable
from the man who founded it, and Henry Ford's constant exploration of new areas
and opportunities led the company into a variety of pursuits beyond just
automobiles, Ford Motor Company's Motion Picture Department was established in
1914 with a staff of 24 that traveled worldwide producing promotional and
educational short films. In the 1920s, the company was the world's largest
producer of motion pictures—more than Hollywood or the New York studios! In
that same period, half of all rural Americans saw a Ford film as their first
motion picture ever.
Henry Ford retired (for the first time) in 1919,
when he handed over leadership of his company to his son, Edsel. Also In 1919,
Henry, along with his wife and Edsel, acquired the stock of the company's
minority shareholders for the astonishing (for 1919) sum of $105,820,894 and
became the sole owners of Ford Motor Company—truly making it a family-owned
business for the first time. However, in 1943, after Edsel's death from cancer
at age 49, Henry was persuaded to return as president of the company and showed
remarkable energy for a man in his 80s—but many people said he was never the
same after the death of his beloved son. Henry Ford became the antithesis of an
empowering leader. He undermined his leaders and look over the shoulders of his
people. The biggest mistake was he created a sociological department within
Ford Motor Company to check up on his employees and direct their private lives.
As time went by, he became more and more eccentric. As results, the company
kept losing its best executives. Eventually, in 1945, Henry Ford was forced to
step down. The Ford Motor Company board of directors was presented with a
letter from Henry Ford, resigning as president of the company and recommending
Henry Ford II, Edsel's eldest son and Henry's eldest grandson, as his
successor. With that, Henry Ford permanently left behind the management of Ford
Motor Company. He was 82 years old. Henry Ford II managed on successfully
maneuvers the company back to productivity and empowered his group to transform
leadership style from a tyrannical dictatorship to a powerful, professional
oligarchy over the next 20 year.
In conclusion, the impact
Henry Ford had on the world is almost immeasurable. His introduction of the
automobile into the mass market transformed agricultural economies in the
United States and even around the world into prosperous industrial and urban.
Many historians credit him with creating a middle class in America. His mass
production techniques providing jobs opportunity that many people (even the
less educated) could do, and he paid them well for doing it. His high minimum
wages were revolutionary at the time, but these "profit-sharing" pioneer
programs for fair distribution of company wealth that greatly influenced later
management practices. By
implementing Ford's philosophy, value and skill in public sector, it can help
Malaysia become a developed country towards Vision 2020.
References:
- Walsh WB, University N. The Evaluation of Leadership Styles in Relationship to Job Performance: Northcentral University; 2009
- Schwartz MK, Gimbel KG. Leadership Resources: A Guide to Training and Development Tools: Center for Creative Leadership; 2000
- Blackaby H, Blackaby R. Spiritual Leadership: Moving People on to God's Agenda, Revised and Expanded: B&H Publishing Group; 2011
- Casson HN, Company FBCFP. Tips on Leadership Or The Life Stories of Twenty Five Leaders: Kessinger Publishing; 2003
- Maxwell JC. The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership Workbook: Thomas Nelson Incorporated; 2007
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Ford
- http://inventors.about.com/od/fstartinventors/a/HenryFord.htm
- http://www.biography.com/people/henry-ford-9298747
- http://www.leadership-with-you.com/henry-ford-leadership.html
- http://corporate.ford.com/news-center/press-releases-detail/650-henry-ford
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