"Be ready to revise any system, scrap any method, abandon any theory, if the success of the job requires it." Henry Ford
March 9, 2016
By: Linda Case Gibbons
It used to be that Americans thought businessmen like Henry Ford and Milton Hershey were role models. They were hard-working guys who were willing to take a risk, and after the risk paid off, they created jobs for others.
And no one paid their freight.
They didn't rail against Capitalism. They used it to realize their unique visions.
Ford and Hershey were just teenagers when they went forth to seek their fortunes. They didn't rack up hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans to use as an excuse for anything. And they didn't have a political party credit card to use for petty cash.
Henry Ford changed the world by producing an affordable automobile with his assembly line, then passed along his savings to his workers by raising their wages.
Milton Hershey wasn't an educated man, but became a shrewd businessman by choosing to learn from his mistakes. After he was successful in his field, he made it a priority to give back.
He provided educational opportunities for others which he did not have for himself, and built a model community for all his employees, ordinary workers and executives alike, with churches, parks, schools, and recreational areas to make his employees' working conditions better.
Not having children of his own, he also created a school for orphans.
Both fell down a number of times, dusted themselves off and got back up. They put their money where their mouths were.
Not a lot of that going around today.
Candidates like Bernie and Hillary specialize in persecuting, corporations, rich people, Wall Street, and then promise to punish the wealthy and make them give more.
They focus on pseudo-issues like climate change instead of ISIS, and ignore the trillions of dollars of U.S. debt. They disregard the burdensome government regulations which are strangling our small businesses, instead promising to provide more for those who do less. They're out of touch.
So being a businessman today isn't where it's at.
If you are a businessman, and you try to enter the political arena, politicians will shut you out. If you are a successful businessman, you and the money you earned are looked upon with disdain.
"Making money is easy," the politicians sneer, as they dip into their SuperPacs, dismissing the businessman as greedy and inexperienced, compared to them, who use their mouths to make a living. Talk, talk, no action.
These career politicians live in the world of politics and words from the day they leave college, politicians like Hillary and Rubio and others.
Isolated from the real world and the concerns of real workaday people, they are content to ride on their own private gravy trains.
And risks? They don't take any.
SuperPacs finance their campaigns, fly them from one campaign stop to another, buy their meals, pay for their phones, and after the campaign is over, lobbyists feather their nests and foundations.
Bernie Sanders is a Socialist, so is it any wonder he hates Captalism? He doesn't say that in so many words to the college kids, but that is his message. And what accounts for Bernie's appeal? That he isn't Hillary.
Bernie tells college students they can have it all and won't have to pay for it. Who's taking the risk of loss for that?
Not Bernie. Not the kids.
What he doesn't tell them is they'll have an education, but no job to go to after graduation, because Bernie's wiping out all the evil corporations that provide jobs.
When Hillary promises to provide Obamacare for illegal immigrants, who's taking that risk?
Not Hillary, Not the illegal immigrants.
Success has become a dirty word in politics, and "poor" the new badge of honor. Candidates point eagerly at their humble beginnings, at how they are "just like you and me."
"My grandparents were immigrants," says Hillary. They weren't.
"My mom was a maid," says Rubio. She was.
And Mitt, in his two unsuccessful bids for the presidency, was embarrassed to tears to talk about the wealth he made as a businessman. So he didn't.
Now both political parties are using Obama's favorite community-organizing tool, Alinsky's Rules for Radicals, to take out and silence someone they believe isn't "one of them." But much to their chagrin, is isn't working.
It should work! The Republican and Democratic Parties are angry and frightened enough to make it work! "It worked for Obama," they say, "why not for Republicans? For the Republican Establishment?
So they ponder and they wonder how to untangle the conundrum in the GOP that is the success of Donald Trump. But they are missing an important fact: Trump is a businessman! He's using sound business practices to run his campaign, business rules he has used all his life. And people love it. They are the rules the Democrats and the Republican Establishment and the president never bothered to use, methods like those discussed in Sam Walton's Ten Rules for Success in Business.
But these are not just rules for business, they are good rules for running a country, a campaign, a life: Communicate to the people, apologize when necessary, commit to the job, control spending and exceed expectations. Rules Democrats, Republicans and the president never bothered to use.
Check out Walton's book and you'll see why The Donald is doing so well in his bid for the presidency. And you'll see a lot of it has to do with respect, the respect Americans never received from their president.
1. *Commit to Your Business. Believe in it more than anybody else. If you love your work, you'll be out there every day trying to do the best you possibly can, and pretty soon everybody around will catch the passion from you, like a fever.
2. Share Your Profits With All Your Associates and Treat Them as Partners. Together you will all perform beyond your wildest expectations.
3. Motivate Your Partners. Money and ownership alone aren't enough. Set high goals, encourage competition and then keep score. Don't become too predictable.
4. Communicate Everything You Possibly Can to Your Partners.
5. Appreciate Everything Your Associates Do for the Business.
6. Celebrate Your Success. Don't take yourself so seriously. Loosen up, have fun, show enthusiasm, always. It really fools competition.
7. Listen to Everyone in Your Company.
8. Exceed Your Customer's Expectations. Give them what they want, and a little more. Make good on all your mistakes and don't make excuses, apologize. Stand behind everything you do.
9. Control Your Expenses Better Than Your Competition. This is where you can always find the competitive advantage. You can make a lot of different mistakes and still recover if you run an efficient operation. Or you can be brilliant and go out of business if you're too inefficient.
10. Swim Upstream. Go the other way, ignore the conventional wisdom. If everybody else is doing it one way, there's a chance you can find your niche by going in exactly the opposite direction.
Hold the line America.
*Sam Walton, "Made in America"