Poking through 11+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.
Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.
Labor Day started as a sop to the working masses after a strike was broken using Federal troops. When I was young Labor Day was an actual holiday when businesses closed. Fast forward to today and for many it’s a workday like any other and a great reason for businesses to have sales.
It’s the result of an 1894 labor strike against the Pullman Company (think aspirational, luxury private railroad cars).
Engineer and industrialist George Pullman’s workers all lived in company-owned buildings. The town was highly stratified. Pullman himself lived in a mansion, managers resided in houses, skilled workers lived in small apartments, and laborers stayed in barracks-style dormitories. The housing conditions were cramped by modern standards, but the town was sanitary and safe, and even included paved streets and stores.
Then the disastrous economic depression of the 1890s struck. Pullman made a decision to cut costs — by lowering wages.
In a sense, workers throughout Chicago, and the country at large, were in the same boat as the Pullman employees. Wages dropped across the board, and prices fell. However, after cutting pay by nearly 30%, Pullman refused to lower the rent on the company-owned buildings and the prices in the company-owned stores accordingly.
Federal troops used extreme force to break the strike resulting in 30 deaths, while rioting and sabotage left 80 million dollars worth of damage in its wake.
Indiana state professor and labor historian Richard Schneirov said President Grover Cleveland’s decision to declare Labor Day as a holiday for workers was likely a move meant to please his constituents after the controversial handling of the strike. The president was a Democrat, and most urban laborers at the time were Catholic Democrats.
Congress approved (knowing their constituents would also be pleased).
Makes you wonder what the current president and congress would do.
A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read allIf the Shoe Fits posts here.
If you heard only the following comment who would you think it’s about?
He was determined to succeed by any means necessary, subordinating questions of right or wrong to the good of his career and driving himself crazy with his hunger for power and control, his hypersensitivity to perceived threats to his independence and stature, and his overarching need to measure up.
Travis Kalanick? Howie Hubler? Parker Conrad?
Nope, none of the above.
What about this quote?
“It is a great profession. There is the fascination of watching a figment of the imagination emerge through the aid of science to a plan on paper. Then it moves to realization in stone or metal or energy. Then it brings jobs and homes to men. Then it elevates the standard of living and adds to the comforts of life. That is the engineer’s high privilege.”
Marc Benioff? Pierre Omidyar? Henry Ford?
Nope, none of the above.
Both the description and the quote are about the same man.
Someone lightly touched on at school, but not explored in any depth, as were those who held the same position at other times.
Certainly most of the information in the article KG shared was new to me and I’ll bet it would be new to most of you.
The person is Herbert Hoover, the 31st President of the United States.
Just a few days left this year, so I thought it would be a good time offer up some wise words for the coming year — actually, they are wise any time and any year.
I rarely quote those who cultivate guru status, but this from Craig D. Lounsbrough really resonates. It’s something many of our so-called leaders should embrace.
“An exceptional future can only be built on the transformation of the mess I’ve made out of my past, not the elimination of that mess.”
We all have messes, some worse than others, so stop minimizing yours or offering glib apologies and mea culpas.
Alan Cohen reminds us that there is no “right” time to start, including New Year’s.
Do not wait until the conditions are perfect to begin. Beginning makes the conditions perfect.
Beginning opens the door to success, but also to failure — or does it? (I got into a lot of trouble for this post, but I still stand by it.)
There is no failure except no longer trying. —Elbert Hubbard
Finally, a few words from two folks who have forgotten more about succeeding than most of us will ever learn.
Unlike Jeff Bezos, Tony Hsieh does a great job channeling many of Henry Ford’s attitudes. While Bezos is devoted to “delighting customers” and taking care of his professional employees, the same can’t be said for the rank and file.
A business absolutely devoted to service will have only one worry about profits. They will be embarrassingly large.
Finally, it seems that too many founders and investors have forgotten, if they ever knew, what drove Thomas Edison’s inventing.
I never perfected an invention that I did not think about in terms of the service it might give others… I find out what the world needs, then I proceed to invent it.
Useful thoughts and good guidance no matter when or where you are in your life.
Everywhere you turn today you hear a reference to a person as a brand, with dozens of pundits telling you how to use social media to “build your personal brand.”
Four years ago, in another post, I said “In an oracular vision of the Twenty-first century Henry Ford said, “A bore is a person who opens his mouth and puts his feats in it.” These days it’s more accurate to say, “A bore is a person who opens their social media and puts their feats in it.””
The result is still a bore, but on a wider stage.
Branding yourself supposedly makes you more valuable, which is laughable, as is the current idea that being busy increases your value.
Sheryl Sandberg has a different take; she believes brands are for things and voices are for people.
The idea of developing your personal brand is a bad one, according to Sandberg. “People aren’t brands,” she says. “That’s what products need. They need to be packaged cleanly, neatly, concretely. People aren’t like that.”
“Who am I?” asks Sandberg. “I am the COO of Facebook, a company I deeply believe in. I’m an author. I’m a mom. I’m a widow. At some level, I’m still deeply heartbroken. I am a friend and I am a sister. I am a lot of very messy, complicated things. I don’t have a brand, but I have a voice.”
Focus on developing your voice, she says. Figuring out what’s important to you and being willing to use your voice for that purpose is incredibly valuable. “If you are doing it to develop your personal brand, it’s empty and self-serving and not about what you’re talking about,” she says. “If you’re doing it because there is something you want to see changed in the world, that’s where it will have value and depth and integrity.”
Additional thoughts from Emily Esfahani Smith, an editor at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and the author of “The Power of Meaning: Finding Fulfillment in a World Obsessed With Happiness” contribute to that goal.
Most young adults won’t achieve the idealistic goals they’ve set for themselves. They won’t become the next Mark Zuckerberg. They won’t have obituaries that run in newspapers like this one. But that doesn’t mean their lives will lack significance and worth. We all have a circle of people whose lives we can touch and improve — and we can find our meaning in that.
It’s worth your time to read both articles no matter your age or situation.
Hopefully you’ll agree and send them on to colleagues, friends and the young people in your life.
Find your voice; live the wisdom that’s been shared, and help change the world for the better.
It’s the result of an 1894 labor strike against the Pullman Company (think aspirational, luxury private railroad cars).
Engineer and industrialist George Pullman’s workers all lived in company-owned buildings. The town was highly stratified. Pullman himself lived in a mansion, managers resided in houses, skilled workers lived in small apartments, and laborers stayed in barracks-style dormitories. The housing conditions were cramped by modern standards, but the town was sanitary and safe, and even included paved streets and stores.
Then the disastrous economic depression of the 1890s struck. Pullman made a decision to cut costs — by lowering wages.
In a sense, workers throughout Chicago, and the country at large, were in the same boat as the Pullman employees. Wages dropped across the board, and prices fell. However, after cutting pay by nearly 30%, Pullman refused to lower the rent on the company-owned buildings and the prices in the company-owned stores accordingly.
Federal troops used extreme force to break the strike resulting in 30 deaths, while rioting and sabotage left 80 million dollars worth of damage in its wake.
Indiana state professor and labor historian Richard Schneirov said President Grover Cleveland’s decision to declare Labor Day as a holiday for workers was likely a move meant to please his constituents after the controversial handling of the strike. The president was a Democrat, and most urban laborers at the time were Catholic Democrats.
Congress approved (knowing their constituents would also be pleased).
Makes you wonder what the current president and congress would do.
In 1914 Henry Ford doubled his workers’ daily wage, much to the consternation of other magnates, who believed, as do most of them today, that success comes from paying as little as possible.
Ford, however, believed that he would benefit if his workers had disposable income and he was correct; they used the extra money to buy Fords.
Fusion OEM at just $12 million is considered very small, but it’s profitable and founder Craig Zoberis is very happy, because he is meeting his twin goals.
While lots of other manufacturers have moved operations to China or Mexico, Zoberis has kept his plant in the United States – and considers it a point of pride to pay his 55 workers above-market rates. Workers with no experience start at $14-an-hour, he says, and by completing training and gaining skills can reach $18-to-20-an-hour, plus overtime and bonuses, for total pay near $50,000 a year, within a few years.
Zoberis doesn’t expect his people to buy his products, but he did want to have a place to work that matched his MAP and not his father’s.
My father and his partner never did a good job of hiring the right people with the right attitude. I wanted to be excited to go to work every day, and working for my father’s company, I was not.
Fusion OEM has never had a layoff, but finding great workers in its industry is just as difficult as finding great programmers, hence the need for a creative, long-term solution.
My colleagues were always complaining that there aren’t enough skilled workers who have the right attitude. When I talk about skilled workers I’m talking about machinists (…) What we discovered halfway through our life at Fusion is that we couldn’t always look outside for skilled people. We decided to hire for attitude and train for aptitude.
Fusion OEM is enjoying double digit growth, but Zoberis isn’t interested in taking outside investment. He loves going to work, saying, “This is my hobby, my income, my life,” and knows that hyper growth can kill you.
You can’t grow your company any faster than you can get the right people. If it goes too far, you might go beyond your capabilities and you’ll fail.
I rarely make predictions, but in this case I feel pretty safe making two.
Zoberis will continue building his company, growing his own people and being a management outlier.
Most companies of whatever size will continue to treat people as disposable, pay them as little as possible and bitch about them to whomever will listen.
More proof that what What Walmart really excels at is PR and spin.
After years of angry customer complaints about dirty stores, unstocked shelves, uncaring employees and an exodus of customers to the competition Walmart had an epiphany.
What if paying workers more, training them better and offering better opportunities for advancement can actually make a company more profitable, rather than less? “Efficiency wages” is the term that economists — who excel at giving complex names to obvious ideas — use for the notion that employers who pay workers more than the going rate will get more loyal, harder-working, more productive employees in return.
Ford astonished the world in 1914 by offering a $5 per day wage ($110 today), which more than doubled the rate of most of his workers. (…) The move proved extremely profitable; instead of constant turnover of employees, the best mechanics in Detroit flocked to Ford, bringing their human capital and expertise, raising productivity, and lowering training costs.
However, these days, money isn’t everything. People want more challenges, more ways to grow and better career opportunities.
“We realized quickly that wages are only one part of it, that what also matters are the schedules we give people, the hours that they work, the training we give them, the opportunities you provide them,” said Judith McKenna, who became chief operating officer in late 2014, in a recent interview. “What you’ve got to do is not just fix one part, but get all of these things moving together.”
“Quickly?” Considering the years of complaints, falling sales and stock price I’m not sure “quickly” is particularly accurate.
Just think. People who earn more money have more discretionary money to spend.
Rocket science? No, just logic.
But making your company look like a hero for paying people $18K a year definitely is rocket science.
Henry Ford figured it out in 1914 when he doubled his workers’ daily wage. He did so on the assumption that they would spend the additional money on stuff beyond subsistence needs and he was right — they bought Fords.
Companies today still haven’t learned that lesson and continue to treat workers as disposable, fighting the idea of a living wage and crying that the cost will destroy them.
Despite starting out with just a $35,000 investment in 1978, The Container Store founder and CEOKip Tindell has grown his business to one that has 67 US locations and rings up annual sales of nearly $800 million.
Equally impressive is the fact that he’s done all that while paying his retail employees nearly twice the industry average.
So what does Tindell know that other bosses of retail businesses don’t? You get what you pay for…
“The 1=3 rule,” i.e., one great employee is as productive as three OK employees, so he gets three times the productivity of an average worker at only two times the cost.
Turnover is lower substantially reducing hiring and training costs.
Annual raises up to 8% of their salaries, based on performance, but
encourages managers to evaluate employees based on their value to the company.
The result is the average Container Store retail salesperson makes nearly $50,000; about double the national average for retail.
When it comes to wages, Kip Tindell is the Twenty-first Century’s Henry Ford.
Ford astonished the world in 1914 by offering a $5 per day wage ($110 today), which more than doubled the rate of most of his workers. (…) The move proved extremely profitable…
The minimum wage war should become a lot more interesting when Tindell takes over as chair of the National Retail Federation.
The annual cost is probably around $50, which is a lot considering the pay.
Richard Reynoso, a Wal-Mart employee in Duarte, Calif., representing a campaign called Organization United for Respect at Walmart said in a letter to the company’s management: “I’m getting paid only about $800-$900 a month. The sad truth is that I do not have $50 lying around the house to spend on new uniform clothes just because Wal-Mart suddenly decided to change its policy.”
If pushed the action is likely to generate additional class action lawsuits, not to mention fan public outrage and generate a significant backlash.
But that isn’t what troubles me.
In the 21st Century our largest employers are the likes of Walmart and McDonald’s.
They pay $8 to $12 an hour and would pay less if they could get away with it.
Businesses on and off-line are working to improve your shopping experience, but most are unwilling to do what Henry Ford did 100 years ago.
Pay people enough that they can afford to consume.
Entrepreneurs face difficulties that are hard for most people to imagine, let alone understand. You can find anonymous help and connections that do understand at 7 cups of tea.
Crises never end.
$10 really does make a difference and you’ll never miss it,
Henry Ford figured it out in 1914 when he doubled his workers’ daily wage. He did so on the assumption that they would spend the additional money on stuff beyond subsistence needs and he was right — they bought Fords.
