The majority of the students gathered financial statements and inventories of the Ford assets and used these as the basis of their estimates of Ford’s wealth.
Included in these “sources of Ford’s wealth” were such as cash in banks, raw and finished materials in stock, real estate and buildings, good-will, estimated at from ten to twenty-five per cent of the value of the material assets.
One student out of the entire group of several hundred answered as follows:
“Henry Ford’s assets consist, in the main, of two items, viz.: (1) Working capital and raw and finished materials; (2) The knowledge, gained from experience, of Henry Ford, himself, and the co-operation of a well trained organization which understands how to apply this knowledge to best advantage from the Ford viewpoint. It is impossible to estimate, with anything approximating correctness, the actual dollars and cents value of either of these two groups of assets, but it is my opinion that their relative values are:
“The organized knowledge of the Ford Organization » 75%
The value of cash and physical assets of every nature, including raw and finished materials » 25%”
This author is of the opinion that this statement was not compiled by the young man whose name was signed to it, without the assistance of some very analytical and experienced mind or minds.
Unquestionably the biggest asset that Henry Ford has is his own brain. Next to this would come the brains of his immediate circle of associates, for it has been through co-ordination of these that the physical assets which he controls were accumulated.
Destroy every plant the Ford Motor Company owns: every piece of machinery; every atom of raw or finished material, every finished automobile, and every dollar on deposit in any bank, and Ford would still be the most powerful man, economically, on earth. The brains which have built the Ford business could duplicate it again in short order. Capital is always available, in unlimited quantities, to such brains as Ford’s.
Ford is the most powerful man on earth (economically) because he has the keenest and most practical conception of the principle of ORGANIZED KNOWLEDGE of any man on earth, as far as this author has the means of knowing.
Despite Ford’s great power and financial success, it may be that he has blundered often in the application of the principles through which he accumulated this power. There is but little doubt that Ford’s methods of mind co-ordination have often been crude; they must needs have been in the earlier days of this experience, before he gained the wisdom of application that would naturally go with maturity of years.
Neither can there be much doubt that Ford’s application of the principle of mind chemistry was, at least at the start, the result of a chance alliance with other minds, particularly the mind of Edison. It is more than probable that Mr. Ford’s remarkable insight into the laws of nature was first begun as the result of his friendly alliance with his own wife long before he ever met either Mr. Edison or Mr. Firestone. Many a man who never knows the real source of his success is made by his wife, through application of the “Master Mind” principle. Mrs. Ford is a most remarkably intelligent woman, and this author has reason to believe that it was her mind, blended with Mr. Ford’s, which gave him his first real start toward power.
It may be mentioned, without in any way depriving Ford of any honor or glory, that in his earlier days of experience he had to combat the powerful enemies of illiteracy and ignorance to a greater extent than did either Edison or Firestone, both of whom were gifted by natural heredity with a most fortunate aptitude for acquiring and applying knowledge. Ford had to hew this talent out of the rough, raw timbers of his hereditary estate.
Within an inconceivably short period of time Ford has mastered three of the most stubborn enemies of mankind and transformed them into assets constituting the very foundation of his success.
These enemies are: Ignorance, illiteracy and poverty!
Any man who can stay the hand of these three savage forces, much less harness and use them to good account, is well worth close study by the less fortunate individuals.
This is an age of INDUSTRIAL POWER in which we are living!
The source of all this POWER is ORGANIZED EFFORT. Not only has the management of industrial enterprises efficiently organized individual workers, but, in many instances, mergers of industry have been effected in such a manner and to the end that these combinations (as in the case of the United States Steel Corporation, for example) have accumulated practically unlimited power.
One may hardly glance at the news of a day’s events without seeing a report of some business, industrial or financial merger, bringing under one management enormous resources and thus creating great power.
One day it is a group of banks; another day it is a chain of railroads; the next day it is a combination of steel plants, all merging for the purpose of developing power through highly organized and co-ordinated effort.
Knowledge, general in nature and unorganized, is not POWER; it is only potential power-the material out of which real power may be developed. Any modern library contains an unorganized record of all the knowledge of value to which the present stage of civilization is heir, but this knowledge is not power because it is not organized.
Every form of energy and every species of animal or plant life, to survive, must be organized. The oversized animals whose bones have filled Nature’s bone-yard through extinction have left mute but certain evidence that non-organization means annihilation.
From the electron-the smallest particle of matter -to the largest star in the universe: these and every material thing in between these two extremes offer proof positive that one of Nature’s first laws is that of ORGANIZATION. Fortunate is the individual who recognizes the importance of this law and makes it his business to familiarize himself with the various ways in which the law may be applied to advantage.
The astute business man has not only recognized the importance of the law of organized effort, but he has made this law the warp and the woof of his POWER.
Without any knowledge, whatsoever, of the principle of mind chemistry, or that such a principle exists, many men have accumulated great power by merely organizing the knowledge they possessed.
The majority of all who have discovered the principle of mind chemistry and developed that principle into a “MASTER MIND” have stumbled upon this knowledge by the merest of accident; often failing to recognize the real nature of their discovery or to understand the source of their power.
This author is of the opinion that all living persons who at the present time are consciously making use of the principle of mind chemistry in developing power through the blending of minds, may be counted on the fingers of the two hands, with, perhaps, several fingers left to spare.
If this estimate is even approximately true the student will readily see that there is but slight danger of the field of mind chemistry practice becoming overcrowded.
It is a well known fact that one of the most difficult tasks that any business man must perform is that of inducing those who are associated with him to coordinate their efforts in a spirit of harmony. To induce continuous co-operation between a group of workers, in any undertaking, is next to impossible. Only the most efficient leaders can accomplish this highly desired object, but once in a great while such a leader will rise above the horizon in the field of industry, business or finance, and then the world hears of a Henry Ford, Thomas A. Edison, John D. Rockefeller, Sr., E. H. Harriman or James J. Hill.
Power and success are practically synonomous terms!
One grows out of the other; therefore, any person who has the knowledge and the ability to develop power, through the principle of harmonious co-ordination of effort between individual minds, or in any other manner, may be successful in any reasonable undertaking that is possible of successful termination.
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