The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara Page #9

'Would you rather be a florist

or a coal miner?'

I had been a florist.

I worked as a florist...

...during some of my Christmas vacations.

I put down coal miner.

I think the reasons are obvious to you.

This group of 10 people had been trained...

...in the officer candidate school at Harvard.

In some tests we had the highest

marks that had ever been scored.

In other tests, we were in the upper

one percentile.

From 1926 to 1946,

including the war years...

...Ford Motor Company just barely broke even.

It was a God-awful mess.

I thought we had a responsibility

to the stockholders...

...and God knows you cannot believe

how bad the situation had been.

They had no market research

organization. I set one up.

Manager said,

'What do you want studied?'

I said, ' Find out who's buying Volkswagens.

Everybody says it's a no-good car.

It was only selling about 20,000 a year...

...but I want to know what's gonna happen.

Is it gonna stay the same,

go down, or go up?

Find out who buys them.'

He came back six months later,

he said:

'Well, they're professors, and they're

doctors and they're lawyers...

...and they're obviously people

who can afford more.'

Well, that set me to thinking about

what we in the industry should do.

Was there a market we were missing?

At this time nobody believed

Americans wanted cheaper cars.

They wanted conspicuous consumption.

Cadillac, with these huge,

ostentatious fins...

...set the style for the industry

for 10 or 15 years.

And that's what we were up against.

We introduced the Falcon

as a more economical car...

...and it was a huge success profit-wise.

We accomplished a lot.

I said, 'What about accidents?

I hear a lot about accidents.'

'Oh, yes, we'll get you some data on that.'

There were about 40,000 deaths

per year from automobile accidents...

...and about a million,

or a million-two injuries.

I said, 'What causes it?' ' It's obvious.

It's human error and mechanical failure.'

I said, ' If it's mechanical,

we might be involved. Find out.

If it's mechanical failure,

I want to stop it.'

Well, he said, 'There's really

very few statistics available.'

I said, ' Damn it, find out what can we learn.'

'The only place we can find

that knows anything about it...

...is Cornell Aeronautical Labs.'

They said,

'The major problem is packaging.'

They said, 'You buy eggs and you

know how eggs come in a carton?'

I said, ' I don't buy eggs.

My wife does it.'

They said, 'Well, you ask her,

when she puts that carton down...

...on the drain board when she gets

home, do the eggs break?'

I asked Marg and she said no.

Cornell said, 'That's because

they're packaged properly.

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