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Over 233 years ago, Adam Smith observed and documented transformation for the first time in his book, “An Inquiry into the Wealth of Nations.” Smith’s now famous observations of the Pin Factories of England became his proof for the potential of business lead by the objectives of their owners. The Pin Factory is now memorialized in the background of the face of the British 20 pound note.

Eighty-Three years before Darwin, Adam Smith had a notion of natural order, and the strength derived from the healthiest domestic businesses prevailing in an open market. He said,

To give the monopoly of the home market to the produce of domestic industry, in any particular art or manufacture, is in some measure to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals, and must in almost all cases be either a useless or a hurtful regulation. If the produce of domestic can be brought there as cheap as that of foreign industry, the regulation is evidently useless. If it cannot, it must generally be hurtful. It is the maxim of every prudent master of a family, never to attempt to make at home what it will cost him more to make than to buy.
- Adam Smith, 1776, “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nation

Smith’s metaphor, “the Invisible Hand,” is often misquoted,

He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain; and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest, he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it.
- Adam Smith, 1776, “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nation

His use of self-interest in this passage is often regarded as “greed”, but Smith is more likely contrasting royal or government interest from self-interest. Most importantly Smith realized that successful businesses didn’t occur by accident they were the result of continuous transformation and optimization. Smith wrote,

Men are much more likely to discover easier and readier methods of attaining any object, when the whole attention of their minds is directed towards that single object, than when it is dissipated among a great variety of things.
- Adam Smith, 1776, “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nation

At Adam Smith Consulting we regard Smith’s message as a call to action to help our client’s transform operations. His recipe for transformation is as valid today as it was in 1776 when he wrote,

First, the improvement of the dexterity of the workmen, necessarily increases the quantity of the work he can perform; and the division of labour, by reducing every man’s business to some one simple operation, and by making this operation the sole employment of his life, necessarily increases very much the dexterity of the workman.

Secondly, the advantage which is gained by saving the time commonly lost in passing from one sort of work to another, is much greater than we should at first view be apt to imagine it. It is impossible to pass very quickly from one kind of work to another, that is carried on in a different place, and with quite different tools.

Thirdly, and lastly, everybody must be sensible how much labour is facilitated and abridged by the application of proper machinery. It is unnecessary to give any example. I shall only observe, therefore, that the invention of all those machines by which labour is so much facilitated and abridged, seems to have been originally owing to the division of labour.

We are committed to helping our client’s achieve their goals through strategy development, advisory services, and journey management services. The Pin Factory is a web destination to spark interest and debate in these goals.

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