--- product_id: 65862015 title: "My life and work Paperback – 10 July 2012" brand: "henry ford" price: "£9.26" currency: GBP in_stock: false reviews_count: 8 url: https://www.desertcart.co.uk/products/65862015-my-life-and-work-paperback-10-july-2012 store_origin: GB region: United Kingdom --- # My life and work Paperback – 10 July 2012 **Brand:** henry ford **Price:** £9.26 **Availability:** ❌ Out of Stock ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** My life and work Paperback – 10 July 2012 by henry ford - **How much does it cost?** £9.26 with free shipping - **Is it available?** Currently out of stock - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.co.uk](https://www.desertcart.co.uk/products/65862015-my-life-and-work-paperback-10-july-2012) ## Best For - henry ford enthusiasts ## Why This Product - Trusted henry ford brand quality - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Description Full description not available ## Images ![My life and work Paperback – 10 July 2012 - Image 1](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41FHk4Ct-EL.jpg) ![My life and work Paperback – 10 July 2012 - Image 2](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/21IFm8KHSjL.jpg) ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐ One of the best business books ever written, ruined by incompetent printers *by C***K on Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 18 April 2020* Amazing book but terrible printing- almost unreadable and grammatically inaccurate. The content of the book is fine. However, it is very obvious that no one with half a brain cell actually looked at the text before the book was made. The entire thing is written in about size 3 font, sentences end and begin seemingly randomly and none of the charts or tables are formatted correctly. A total waste of time, Whoever formatted this edition before shamelessly using Amazon print service needs to go back to primary school and understand what a sentence is and how the English language works before they try to rip you off for this ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ A manifesto for the protestant work ethic coupled to production efficiency *by A***K on Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 16 August 2010* While the title reads life and work, for the author this meant more or less work is life. In a way it is an old school biography - in this case focused mostly on the company in question, rather than the author himself - in the same vein as Hilton's  Be My Guest . It is also very much focusing on the principles of management that Henry Ford believed in, and is in that way a great complement to Alfred P. Sloan's  My Years with General Motors  - something worthwhile reading for anyone interested in or working in the automotive industry (and interested in management more broadly, as well).A lot of the moves Ford made from the start at the turn of last century to the meteoric rise and peak in the early 1920's, when the book was written are described in the book, with the logic behind it laid out. You will be able to read about the $5 workday, the constant quest for production efficiency improvement, the practical (and not from forged results, like with Taylor) results of scientific management, the production line, the constant lowering of prices for the product, following efficiency gains, the mechanisation of agriculture, etc. Some, such as the introduction of the production line and the $5 a day salary are relatively well known, the rest perhaps less so and what the book does relatively well is show how the system works well holistically and what is needed in order to implement it.On top of describing production, quite some attention is being devoted to other aspects of business, which Ford considered peripheral, misused and generally badly run - such as financing, hedging, transport, law, etc. In his view the finance aspects and departments even in his day were overemphasised and one can easily see how the efficiency based system he was striving for would be hard to implement in a company where the owner / CEO does not have the ultimate control - stock markets as well as shareholders would be fairly unlikely to support the low dividend and low article profitability (compensated by a meteoric rise in sales leading to an extremely solid profitability overall) back then as well as now. His basic message being that more money will not prevent bad management, rather it will perpetuate it, removing the urgency and need for more fundamental operative changes. He also warns agains hedging (raw materials, currency etc.) - in his view, when a business makes a killing in those areas a couple of times, the temptation is great to focus the effort here rather than on production or the delivery of goods and services, something likely to lead to decline in the longer term (he did not believe it is consistently possible to beat the market).The book is also surprising if one looks at when it was written - many later authors seem to have borrowed extremely heavily from it. Ayn Rand ( Atlas Shrugged (Penguin Modern Classics) , The Fountainhead (Penguin Modern Classics) ) appears to have taken on many ideas - although her disdain for the common man is not shared by Ford (he is much more egalitarian in this respect - i.e. people have different capabilities but it is also the responsibility of the management and the people with abilities to make sure the rest fulfill their potential). The stock and flow framework of Jay Forrester's System Dynamics (as introduced by the author in his book  Industrial Dynamics ) is described here (decades earlier), too. He also seems to have predated Colin Chapman's (of Lotus fame) obsession of adding lightness to everything by about 5 decades.As for the style, Ford does not necessarily write for readability - it will be much closer to works of his time in this respect, more of a Veblen's  The Theory of the Leisure Class (Oxford World's Classics)  than the work of a late 20th century management guru. Still, it is not a real chore to read, it just requires a bit more concentration.Finally, it is interesting to see how the system he devised and operated so effectively for about two decades was replaced and enriched by Sloan's version of mass customisation, something Ford was forced to adapt but a few brief years after the book was written. If you are interested in how some of Ford's ideas evolved (and degenerated) later on, I can also warmly recommend Sloan's  My Years with General Motors  for the next stage of development, Dewar's  A Savage Factory: An Eyewitness Account of the Auto Industry's Self-Destruction  for the complete brakdown of relations between labour and management (also at Ford), and either DeLorean's  On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors: John Z. De Lorean's Look Inside the Automotive Giant  or Yates'  The Decline and Fall of the American Automobile Industry  for the final stages of cancerous development / subversion of Ford's and Sloan's earlier ideas. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Must read for any entrepreneur *by P***N on Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 15 April 2018* One of the best autobiographies to read. Written by humble man who achieved a lot and transformed lives of literally everyone, yet he was not afraid to admit his biggest mistakes. Ford's flat company structure, 5 days working week, continuous search for tiny improvements and detailed measurements of every process were shocking to everyone back in the early 20th century. There is so much hate towards this great man in mainstream media these days, I'd recommend that entrepreneurs shouldn't listen to that noise. By reading this short book you will get much more benefit how the automobile industry started to thrive thanks to Henry Ford. --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.co.uk/products/65862015-my-life-and-work-paperback-10-july-2012](https://www.desertcart.co.uk/products/65862015-my-life-and-work-paperback-10-july-2012) --- *Product available on Desertcart United Kingdom* *Store origin: GB* *Last updated: 2026-05-18*