Investor's Business Daily, October 31st, 2007
To Harvey Firestone, excuses were a signal that the thinking process had come to a screeching stop.
Firestone (1868-1938) wasn't unreasonable. He was a practical businessman who insisted on the highest quality for the tires he manufactured. Firestone placed the responsibility for his company's fortunes on himself and his managers, rather than on the labor force.
"If any of the men offered an excuse for failing to meet (Firestone's) standards, he had a private remark for them: 'We can't sell alibis. We have tires to sell,'" wrote Albert Lief in "The Firestone Story."
The currency of business, Firestone believed, was careful thought. "I say this not because I read it somewhere in a book, but because I have lived it. The most difficult thing in business is first getting yourself to thinking and then getting others to thinking. I say this is difficult because, in the natural course of business, an infinite number of details come up every day, and it is very easy indeed to keep so busy with these details that no time is left over for hard, quiet thought -- for thinking through from the beginning to the end," wrote Firestone in "Men and Rubber: The Story of Business."
Started by Firestone and his two partners in Akron, Ohio, in 1900, Fire-stone Tire & Rubber, (now Bridgestone Firestone) began with working capital of $20,000. Under Firestone's direction, the company emerged against fierce, established competition to became a $100-million-a-year business and a household name. At his death, the company provided 25% of the tires on American roadways.
To make the best tires, Firestone worked to produce the most motivated employees. His "we are all one" philosophy bore itself out in employee health benefits, free life insurance, eight-hour workdays and higher-than-average wages. "The successful businessman ... gives as much thought, or more, to the welfare of his employees as he does to the profits of the business," he said.
His formula for success was to do what he loved and provide a product that people needed.
"The single reason for the existence of any business must be that it supplies a human need or want. ... A business which has this reason for its existence will be bound in the end to prosper if thought be put into it," Firestone said.
"In every undertaking, he thought of social usefulness," wrote Allan Nevins in the foreword to "Harvey Firestone: Free Man of Enterprise." "Like everyone else, he found business a rough game. But he realized that in order to win he must deliver benefits to the public."
Innovation was key, Firestone knew. When the U.S. entered World War I in 1917, railroad traffic was inundated with government freight, and Firestone looked for another way to ship consumer freight. So he pushed his research department to develop the first practical, heavy-duty tires for trucks. In 1918, his ad campaign helped begin the modern trucking industry.
Firestone also developed the first practical rubber tire for farm equipment, replacing pure steel wheels, in the 1930s, and productivity rose. "Put the Farm on Wheels" was that ad campaign.
"Much of Firestone's success was built on his ability to create markets and then sell his products to fill that market need," said Bob Troyer, Firestone's retired chief spokesman.
Firestone kept a keen eye on market trends that signaled him to change the company's direction. At its inception, Firestone Tire & Rubber bought and sold tires for carriages, but he soon saw the only road to profitability was in manufacturing them for the emerging auto industry. He saw the potential of air-filled tires and directed his firm to perfect their manufacture.
"No business can succeed unless it is constantly revising its product, not only to meet the actual demands of today but also the potential demands of tomorrow," Firestone wrote. "A product can never really be standardized."
To break free of the yoke of the British rubber cartel's price fluctuations, Firestone leased 1 million acres in Liberia and started his own rubber plantation in the early 1920s.
"He was a fighter," Troyer said. "Firestone fought for what he believed was right for his company and his country. He took on the British rubber cartels single-handedly because other people in the rubber industry wouldn't do it."
To guard against complacency, Fire-stone continually re-evaluated his firm, from production to sales. Two questions guided him: "Is it necessary?" and "Can it be simplified?"
Questioning helped Firestone uncover the difference between the truly essential and what was a costly, outdated tradition. By questioning production methods, Firestone created a manufacturing facility in 1912 with the latest equipment. Tires were made faster, better and cheaper, with production rising from 40 to 40,000 tires per day.
He also gleaned tips from friends such as Henry Ford and Thomas Edison. His favorite was "Go it alone. Do not fail to try because someone has already tried and failed."
All the while he kept his company focused on turning out quality tires, knowing that that alone made selling the product easy. "It is the duty of management to provide so good a product and then to let people know so thoroughly about it that any man of reasonable intelligence can go out and sell it," Firestone said.
This story originally ran April 12, 2004, on Leaders & Success.
