It Will Be There Tomorrow

"All achievements, all earned riches, have their beginning in an idea."

 - Napoleon Hill (1883-1970), American motivational speaker

I've always been fascinated by men and women who take an idea and turn it into something far greater than they might have imagined when it first occurred to them. America has had more than its fair share of these people. Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Thomas Watson, Bill Gates and Michael Dell, to name a few, all took their ideas and created profitable enterprises that provided many benefits for their customers, their employees, and themselves.

Frederick W. Smith, founder of Federal Express, is one of these innovators who had an idea, acted upon it, and transformed the manner in which business is conducted by providing overnight delivery of almost anything you can think of to practically anywhere in the world.  

Interestingly, the original concept came to him while he was a student at Yale University in the 1960's. He wrote a term paper about it and his professor gave him a "C" grade for his effort. Students were told that in order to get higher than a "C", their ideas had to be feasible. Though his professor was only minimally impressed, Smith nurtured his dream until the early 1970's when he started his company with 14 planes, 389 employees and a first night delivery of 186 packages. Today FedEx has the world's largest all-cargo fleet, handles 3.3 million packages nightly and employs over 200,000 people.

In this fascinating interview conducted by journalist Michael Robinson for The American Enterprise Online magazine, Mr. Smith talks about not only his business, but a host of other topics such as globalization, outsourcing, free trade, the U.S. economy, unions, the Vietnam and Iraq Wars, and as a bonus, shares his thoughts about George Bush and John Kerry who were classmates of his at Yale.

Even if you think you're not interested in entrepreneurship, I believe you'll find this interview a lot of fun to read. I certainly did, not only because of what Smith said, but because his company was one that we studied when the corporation I once worked for was striving to win the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. A part of that study included a trip to FedEx's Memphis hub to see how packages were received, sorted, distributed and tracked for overnight delivery all over the world. I believe they still conduct tours, so if you're ever in Memphis, make an appointment to drop by and see this amazing operation. You won't regret it.