The significant influence of the copper-cooled engine was in what it taught us about the value of organized cooperation and coordination in engineering and other matters. It showed the need to make an effective distinction between divisional and corporate functions in engineering, and also between advanced product engineering and long-range researc

With Ford in almost complete possession of the low-price field, it would have been suicidal to compete with him head on. No conceivable amount of capital short of the United States Treasury could have sustained the losses required to take volume away from him at his own game. The strategy we devised was to take a bite from the top of his position,

It would be unfair to claim any particular prescience on our part; no more than anyone else did we see the depression coming. I think the story I have told shows that we had simply learned how to react quickly. This was perhaps the greatest payoff of our system of financial and operating controls.

And remember this, that in the automobile industry you cannot operate without programing and planning. It is a matter of respecting figures on the future as a guide. The essential elements are the forecast and the correction, each equally critical.

Out of this process comes a winnowing of techniques and ideas, and a development of judgments and skills. The quality of General Motors’ management as a whole derives in part from this shared experience with common goals and from divisional rivalry within the framework of these common goals.

It distinguished policy from administration of policy, and specified the location of each in the structure. It expressed in its way the concept that was later to be formulated as decentralized operations with coordinated control.

Thus the more important thing in the end was not the correctness of the index for the model year but the sensitivity to actual market changes through prompt reports and adjustment.

Decentralization provided the opportunity; [the incentive compensation] . . . provided the stimulation; jointly they made the top level executives in the Corporation a cooperatively constructive group without destroying individual ambition and initiative.

It appeared clear that one basic mistake was a divided responsibility. The Executive Committee, the operating divisions, and the Research Corporation, all with different viewpoints both within themselves and with each other, were trying to do an administrative job. It was clear that we now must get back to sound principles, concentrate the responsi