My Years With General Motors

The General Technical Committee raised the prestige of the engineering group in the corporation and supported its efforts to acquire more adequate facilities and personnel. Its activities emphasized the importance of product integrity as the basic requirement for the future success of the business. It had a remarkable effect in stimulating interest

But let me say that, though I have often been taxed, by people who do not know me, with being a committee man — and in a sense I most certainly am — I have never believed that a group as such could manage anything. A group can make policy, but only individuals can administer policy.

First of all, what was needed was a place to bring these men together under amicable circumstances for the exchange of information and the ironing out of differences. It seemed to me preferable that such a meeting of minds should take place in the presence of the general executives, who would in the end have to make or approve the big decisions on

I have always believed in planning big, and I have always discovered after the fact that, if anything, we didn’t plan big enough. But I did not foresee the size of General Motors or have size in mind as an objective. I simply took the view that we should go at the job vigorously and without hampering restrictions. I put no ceiling on progress. Grow

We set out to produce not for the chosen few but for the whole consumer public on the assumption of a continuously rising standard of living. Our interpretations of the significance of the rising standard of living marked an important difference between us and others in the formative years of the modern market.

As to organization, we did not have adequate knowledge or control of the individual operating divisions. It was a management by crony, with the divisions operating on a horse-trading basis.

As a result of the speed with which we acted when sales began to fall, we were able to reduce our inventories in line with the sales decline and to control costs so that operations remained profitable. Our sales declined 71 percent, from $1504 million in 1929 to only $432 million in 1932, but our inventories were reduced 60 percent, or by $113 mill

If I could wave a magic wand over our dealer organization, with the result that every dealer could have a proper accounting system, could know the facts about his business and could intelligently deal with the many details incident to his business in an intelligent manner as a result thereof, I would be willing to pay for that accomplishment an eno

These annual estimates were really three different forecasts in one, for I requested them to predict for the coming year what their sales, earnings, and capital requirements would be on the basis of expectations that were pessimistic, conservative (that is, most likely), and optimistic. These compilations were not regarded as commitments — fortunat