Word: sloane
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Golden Rule. When Sloan became president, the company had 12% of the U.S. auto market; when he stepped out as chairman, it had 52%. G.M. never skipped a dividend-Sloan's golden rule was that profits were worth nothing if they were not passed on to shareholders. At the time of his death, he was the largest shareholder, with more than 690,000 shares...
...Sloan's management extended far beyond New York and Detroit. He spent much time on the road, traveled in a private railroad car to call on G.M. dealers large and small, seeking out their advice and complaints-and in the process, building the auto industry's strongest dealer network. He also moved G.M. overseas, buying such subsidiaries as Britain's Vauxhall and Germany's Opel, and he diversified General Motors into the manufacture of nonauto products ranging from refrigerators to diesel locomotives...
Work Hard. For all his prestige and power, Sloan never really became a personage to the public. "Mr. Sloan is coming out with a new car with an Indian name-Pontiac," cracked Will Rogers. "Mr. Ford and Mr. Chrysler have automobiles named after them. All Mr. Sloan has is a liniment...
...Sloan preferred it that way. Though he was friend and adviser to U.S. Presidents, he treated them with the same cool courtesy that he showed toward used-car dealers. He carefully answered all letters that came to him, but, whether to a close friend or perfect stranger, he always signed himself as "Alfred P. Sloan." In his autobiography, My Years with General Motors, which started as a series of articles in FORTUNE and became a book that sold 50,000 copies, he passed on to would-be tycoons his secrets of success. "Keep an open mind," he wrote, "and work...
...Golf, No Fishing. Throughout his long lifetime, Alfred Sloan was certainly the exemplar of his own advice. His total dedication was to General Motors. He never smoked, seldom drank, disliked partygoing, scoffed at golf and fishing as wastes of time, rarely read anything other than corporate reports. He and his wife, Irene Jackson Sloan, had no children, lived quietly in their apartment on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue. The Sloans gave to charities with magnificent openhandedness; their philanthropy over the years has been estimated at more than $300 million, including $18 million to M.I.T. and $31 million to the Memorial...