MBA备考商务英语泛读文选全集(23)
网络资源 免费考研网/2009-01-16
Driving force: Henry Ford (1780 words)
Naturally, Ford, and only Ford, determined that policy. He
was violently opposed to labor organizers, whom he saw
as "the worst thing that ever struck the earth," and
entirely unnecessary-who, after all, knew more about taking
care of his people than he? Only when he was faced with a
general strike in 1941 did he finally agree to let the
United Auto Workers organize a plant.
By then Alfred P. Sloan had combined various car companies
into a powerful General Motors, with a variety of models
and prices to suit all tastes. He had also made labor eace.
That left Ford in the dust, its management in turmoil. And
if World War II hadnt turned the companys manufacturing
prowess to the business of making B-24 bombers and jeeps,
it is entirely possible that the 1932 V-8 engine might have
been Fords last innovation.
In the prewar years there was no intelligent management at
Ford. When I arrived at the end of the war, the company was
a monolithic dictatorship. Its balance sheet was still
being kept on the back of an envelope, and the guys in
purchasing had to weigh the invoices to count them. College
kids, managers, anyone with book learning was viewed with
some kind of suspicion. Ford had done so many screwy things-
from terrorizing his own lieutenants to canonizing Adolf
Hitler--- that the companys image was as low as it could
go.
It was Henry Ford II who rescued the legacy. He played down
his grandfathers antics, and he made amends with the
Jewish business community that Henry Ford had alienated so
much with the racist attacks that are now a matter of
historical record. Henry II encouraged the "whiz kids" like
Robert McNamara and Arjay Miller to modernize management,
which put the company back on track. Ford was the first
company to get a car out after the war, and it was the only
company that had a real base overseas. In fact, one of the
reasons that Ford is so competitive today is that from the
very beginning, Henry Ford went anywhere there was a road-
and usually a river. He took the company to 33 countries at
his peak. These days the automobile business is going more
global every day, and in that, as he was about so many
things, Ford was prescient.
Henry Ford died in his bed at his Fair Lane mansion seven
months after I met him, during a blackout caused by a storm
in the spring of 1947. He was 83. The fact is, there
probably couldnt be a Henry Ford in todays world.
Business is too collegial. One hundred years ago, business
was done by virtual dictatorsmen laden with riches and so
much power they could take over a country if they wanted
to. Thats not acceptable anymore. But if it hadnt been
for Henry Fords drive to create a mass market for cars,
America wouldnt have a middle class today.
(未完待续)