The Expanded and Annotated My Life and Work

Sloganeering Is Not Leadership
W. Edwards Deming warned explicitly against reliance on slogans which, 
in the absence of genuine leadership by example, are meaningless words 
or phrases. To this, Ford (1922, pp. 204–205) added:
The best propaganda an employer can use is to do right now for his own 
men what he knows he can and ought to do.
… The best propaganda you can ever have is the reputation of being 
square, humane and thoughtful of others all the time. There are some 
things you can never tell men, nor persuade them of by speech or literature. 
But if the things are there, the men will know it—you may be sure of that.
The concept of stewardship also appears in this section: “… when one 
looks at a great productive organization that is enabling all these things 
to be done, then the continuance of that business becomes a holy trust.” 
This is simply an extension of the principle that the job is paramount, 
as was shown in Chapter 6, to the idea that the organization’s ability to 
serve is paramount. Stewardship meanwhile ties in with the concept of the 
Mandate of Heaven, which appears in the next section.

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236  •  The Expanded and Annotated My Life and Work
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We do not believe in the “glad hand,” or the professionalized “personal 
touch,” or “human element.” It is too late in the day for that sort of thing. 
Men want something more than a worthy sentiment. Social conditions are 
not made out of words. They are the net result of the daily relations between 
man and man. The best social spirit is evidenced by some act which costs the 
management something and which benefits all. That is the only way to prove 
good intentions and win respect. Propaganda, bulletins, lectures—they are 
nothing. It is the right act sincerely done that counts.
A great business is really too big to be human. It grows so large as to sup-
plant the personality of the man. In a big business the employer, like the 
employee, is lost in the mass. Together they have created a great productive 
organization which sends out articles that the world buys and pays for in 
return money that provides a livelihood for everyone in the business. The 
business itself becomes the big thing.
There is something sacred about a big business which provides a living for 
hundreds and thousands of families. When one looks about at the babies 
coming into the world, at the boys and girls going to school, at the young 
workingmen who, on the strength of their jobs, are marrying and setting up 
for themselves, at the thousands of homes that are being paid for on install-
ments out of the earnings of men—when one looks at a great productive orga-
nization that is enabling all these things to be done, then the continuance of 
that business becomes a holy trust. It becomes greater and more important 
than the individuals.