The Expanded and Annotated My Life and Work

The Universal Code Is Synergistic
The concept of synergy is vital because none of the code’s three elements 
can stand alone. Consider, for example, the element of a square deal for 
all supply chain participants. Fair compensation for labor gains employee 
buy-in and engagement: a “combination of an employee’s loyalty, commit-
ment and motivation” (Industry Week, 2011).
To this Ford adds in Chapter 8, “It ought to be the employer’s ambi-
tion, as leader, to pay better wages than any similar line of business, and it 
ought to be the workman’s ambition to make this possible.” The employ-
er’s ability to pay higher wages depends significantly on labor-initiated 
or labor-supported productivity improvements. This was how the Ford 
Motor Company realized many if not most of its shop floor productivity 
gains. The willingness of hourly workers to improve productivity depends 
reciprocally on confidence that the results will show up in their paychecks. 
Therefore, higher wages and higher productivity are significantly if not 
completely interdependent.
If, on the other hand, management seeks to pay labor as little as possible 
and/or looks for ways to discharge workers, the workers will reciprocate 
with unionization, restrictive work rules, a nine-to-five mentality, produc-
tivity restrictions, and Luddism.
*
 Then the system will produce less wealth, 
which may lead in turn to management efforts to wrest concessions from 
the union or else to ship the jobs offshore. Management and labor can lose 
together just as easily as they can win together. The interaction of the eco-
nomic, scientific, and behavioral laws is, therefore, synergistic, whether for 
* 
Luddism is the deliberate undermining of productivity improvements and mechanization.

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xviii  •  Editor’s Introduction
good or bad. The same concept applies by extension to customer–supplier 
relationships.