Henry Ford Stories

There are certain people in history who accumulate stories and quotes. If you have a quote that is cuttingly witty, it'll be said to be by Oscar Wilde or Winston Churchill. If it's more folksy and witty - Mark Twain.  Here we look at a family of stories and quotes that accrue to Henry Ford. He's legendary as the platonic model of the modern American industrialist.

Left to Right: Ford, Edison, Harding, Firestone

Henry Ford had a problem at one of his factories. The main generator had stopped working and no one could figure out why. Work was stopped and the shutdown was costing the company dearly. Finally Ford, who was familiar with many of the great minds of the age, called Charles Steinmetz to come as a consultant and figure out what was wrong. After listening to a few minutes of explanation, Steinmetz shooed away all of Ford's engineers and drew out his notebook and pencil. After two days of careful listening and occasional bursts of calculation, Steinmetz mounted a ladder and made a chalk mark on the side of the generator. He said "replace 12 loops of the coil at this point." They did, and it worked. Later, Ford received a bill for $10,000. This was a remarkable sum in that time, and Ford asked, respectively, for an itemization from Steinmetz. The reply read: Piece of chalk - $1, Knowing where to mark with chalk - $9,999.

One day there was a small disaster at the Ford factory. An employee had set a metal punch to the wrong position and $1,000 worth of parts were ruined before it was caught. The employee felt terrible and went to Henry Ford himself to apologize and be fired. To his surprise, Ford did not fire the employee, but sent him back to work. When asked why, Ford said "I'm not going to fire an employee I just invested $1,000 in educating!" 

"Whether you think you can, or think you can't - you're right." - Henry Ford

It's said that Henry Ford had a team of engineers who he would send to junkyards around America. They were tasked with assessing the condition of the various parts - what was falling apart, what was still in good shape. They found that a certain cotter pin that was made of a high quality alloy and of a thick gage was always in particularly great shape. The engineers thought "Ah, great, now we know to use this material and technique in other parts." But when they reported to Henry Ford, he listened to what they said, but shook his head and told them to just reduce the quality of the over-designed pin. 

"If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." - Henry Ford.

A VIP was being shown around the factory by Henry Ford himself. At one point Ford indicated the vehicle under construction and stated that the finished product would contain "exactly four thousand, seven hundred, and eighteen parts!" This struck the visitor, so later he cornered a company engineer and asked if there were really exactly four thousand, seven hundred, and eighteen parts in that model. The engineer shrugged and said "I don't know, but I can't think of a more useless piece of information!"

"You can get the Model T in any color you like, as long as it's black." - Henry Ford

It's said that Henry Ford would take job applicants out to lunch, but immediately reject any who salted their food before tasting it. 

"Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently" - Henry Ford

Henry Ford hired an efficiency expert to go through his plant. He said, "Find the nonproductive people. Tell me who they are, and I will fire them!" The expert made the rounds with his clipboard in hand and finally returned to Henry Ford's office with his report. "I've found a problem with one of your administrators," he said. "Every time I walked by, he was sitting with his feet propped up on the desk. The man never does a thing. I definitely think you should consider getting rid of him!" When Henry Ford learned the name of the man the expert was referring to, Ford shook his head and said, "I can't fire him. I pay that man to do nothing but think - and that's what he's doing."