Origins
The group was part of a management science operation within the Army Air Force known as Statistical Control, organized to coordinate all the operational and logistical information required to manage the waging of war. Thornton had been recommended to the assistant secretary of War, Robert A. Lovett, by a mutual acquaintance who thought Lovett would find use for the ambitious and energetic Thornton. Upon finding mass confusion, Thornton developed the idea of an information gathering organization within the service and gained Lovett's support to create the organization, which recruited and trained numerous officer candidates who were selected through intelligence testing. After the war, some of the group discussed opportunities to go into business together.
Thornton wrote to several corporations, offering their services as a group — all ten, or nothing. Henry Ford II had recently taken over the company from his ailing grandfather and, needing management help badly, accepted their offer.
In Lee Iacocca's autobiography, he describes the origins of the phrase "Whiz Kids". The group of ten was very young by Ford management employee demographics, which carried a certain element of jealousy. Couple that with the number of questions the group asked to understand all aspects of Ford operations, and a disparaging moniker for the group came into being: Quiz Kids. Although the ten bristled at their unwanted nickname, particularly Robert McNamara, the group made lemonade out of this lemon and rebranded themselves as the "Whiz Kids" to tout their skills at improving production operations. To their credit, they actually delivered on performance and their self-proclaimed title "Whiz Kids" not only stuck, but earned respect. Iacocca goes on to describe his numerous run-ins with McNamara, which led Iacocca to leave the engineering division and go into Ford marketing, far from McNamara's presence and influence.
Read more about this topic: Whiz Kids (Ford)
Famous quotes containing the word origins:
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