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“An organization, to render any service so widely useful, must be large in scope as well as great in purpose. To conquer the high cost of motoring and to stabilize the factors of production—this is a great purpose. Naturally it requires a large program to carry it out,” it stated. “In accomplishing its aims the Ford institution has never been daunted by the size or difficulty of any task. It has spared no toil in finding the way of doing each task best. It has dared to try out the untried with conspicuous success.”
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This was exactly what Mulally had been looking for—a polestar to guide his transformation of Ford, a touchstone that he could return to in times of doubt. Everything came together for him in that image. He grabbed a pen and a pad of paper and began writing in his usual stream-of-consciousness style: