Lee Iacocca Quotations

The only rock I know that stays steady, the only institution I know that works, is the family.

In times of great stress or adversity, it's always best to keep busy, to plow your anger and your energy into something positive.

Start with good people, lay out the rules, communicate with your employees, motivate them and reward them. If you do all those things effectively, you can't miss.

The most successful businessman is the man who holds onto the old just as long as it is good, and grabs the new just as soon as it is better.

I was at Ford for 32 years. I went to Chrysler in 1978, four or five months after I got canned by Henry Ford.

I have always found that if I move with seventy-five percent or more of the facts that I usually never regret it. It's the guys who wait to have everything perfect that drive you crazy.

A guy named Charlie Beacham was my first mentor at Ford. He taught me the importance of the dealers, and he rubbed my nose in the retail business.

Motivation is everything. You can do the work of two people, but you can't be two people. Instead, you have to inspire the next guy down the line and get him to inspire his people.

When the product is right, you don't have to be a great marketer.

In a completely rational society, the best of us would be teachers and the rest of us would have to settle for something else.

Decisiveness is the one word that makes a good manager.

The speed of the boss is the speed of the team.

The thing that lies at the foundation of positive change, the way I see it, is service to a fellow human being.

To succeed today, you have to set priorities, decide what you stand for.

I have found that being honest is the best technique I can use. Right up front, tell people what you're trying to accomplish and what you're willing to sacrifice to accomplish it.

The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.

No matter what you've done for yourself or for humanity, if you can't look back on having given love and attention to your own family, what have you really accomplished?

So what do we do? Anything. Something. So long as we just don't sit there. If we screw it up, start over. Try something else. If we wait until we've satisfied all the uncertainties, it may be too late.

The affections are like lightning: you cannot tell where they will strike till they have fallen.

Apply yourself. Get all the education you can, but then, by God, do something. Don't just stand there, make it happen.

My father always used to say that when you die, if you've got five real friends, then you've had a great life.

We are continually faced by great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems.

The discipline of writing something down is the first step toward making it happen.

The ability to concentrate and to use time well is everything.

I hire people brighter than me and then I get out of their way.

We at Chrysler borrow money the old-fashioned way. We pay it back.

People want economy and they will pay any price to get it.

Talk to people in their own language. If you do it well, they'll say, 'God, he said exactly what I was thinking.' And when they begin to respect you, they'll follow you to the death.

There are times when even the best manager is like the little boy with the big dog, waiting to see where the dog wants to go so he can take him there.

If a guy is over 25 percent jerk, he's in trouble. And Henry was 95 percent.

The kind of people I look for to fill top management spots are the eager beavers, the mavericks. These are the guys who try to do more than they're expected to do - they always reach.

There is no substitute for accurate knowledge. Know yourself, know your business, know your men.

The one word that makes a good manager - decisiveness.

In the end, all business operations can be reduced to three words: people, product, and profits.

One of the things the government can't do is run anything. The only things our government runs are the post office and the railroads, and both of them are bankrupt.

Any supervisor worth his salt would rather deal with people who attempt too much than with those who try too little.

In a corporation, there can only be one guy in the end: the CEO.

It was emotional when Chrysler sold out to the Germans.

What is wrong with changing your mind because the facts changed? But you have to be able to say why you changed your mind and how the facts changed.

The trick is to make sure you don't die waiting for prosperity to come.

I guess that's one achievement I'm really proud of. Saving Chrysler was more than jobs, more than shareholder value. Saving Chrysler was a good idea for the whole country.

Management is nothing more than motivating other people.

Every business and every product has risks. You can't get around it.

I've always found that the speed of the boss is the speed of the team.

I forgot to shake hands and be friendly. It was an important lesson about leadership.

We've got to pause and ask ourselves: How much clean air do we need?

If you want to make good use of your time, you've got to know what's most important and then give it all you've got.

Chrysler invented rebates, I'm sorry to say. I didn't have anything to do with that. A lot of flaky deals were made in order to give the customer enough cash for a down payment.

I guess I invented extended warranties, because that's all we had to sell at Chrysler in those days.

I was stunned. It was a complete takeover. Chrysler had $12 billion in cash and was stronger at the time and should have bought Daimler.

I gotta tell ya, with our $2.4 billion in profits last year, they gave me a great big bonus. Really, it's almost obscene.

If it hadn't been for Henry Ford's drive to create a mass market for cars, America wouldn't have a middle class today,

He was eccentric. He was no prince in his social attitudes and his politics. But Henry Ford's mark in history is almost unbelievable.

I always go back to Harry Truman: Should we drop an atomic bomb to save 100,000 lives? That's a hell of a decision to make. Did he make that decision by himself? No, he had advisers.

Jason wanted me to be the spokesman for Nissan when he was with them,

I'm here today because our country needs a change in leadership, ... We need a leader who is really dedicated to creating millions of high-paying jobs all across the country.

The ability to concentrate and to use your time well is everything.

You know, I'm not too sure what you just said. Now everybody gets a great deal.

When future historians look back on our way of curing inflation they'll probably compare it to bloodletting in the Middle Ages.

We believe the combination of these two companies will produce very powerful synergies and puts us on a solid platform from which we should be able to realize our full growth potential.

Boys, there ain't no free lunches in this country. And don't go spending your whole life commiserating that you got the raw deals. You've got to say, "I think that if I keep working at this and want it bad enough I can have it." It's called perseverance.

Something's got to happen in this town to turn it around, or we're all going down the tubes,

Al Gore's extreme ideas about cars could cost a lot of Michigan families their jobs.

You've got to say, ''I think that if I keep working at this and want it badly enough I can have it.'' It's called perseverance.

People say to me, ''You were a roaring success. How did you do it?'' I go back to what my parents taught me. Apply yourself. Get all the education you can, but then, by God, do something. Don't just stand there, make something happen.

We at Chrysler borrow money the old fashion way. We pay it back.

If you can find a better car, buy it.

The biggest mistake in my life was hiring Eaton as chairman without checking him out first, ... I didn't know him and hired the wrong guy, an error of judgment. When you make a bad people choice it hurts a lot of people for a long time.

He's just a good kid. I didn't understand half the things he was telling me, but it was fun.

It was a marriage made in heaven. The ads created a lot of buzz, and sales rose 24.7 percent in July,

They're going to Orlando, and I'm going to Palm Beach. If it were just me, I wouldn't do this. But because there are eight or nine of us, it makes sense to fly this way.

Are we going to be a services power? The double-cheeseburger-hold-the-mayo kings of the world?

The great issues facing us today are not Republican issues or Democratic issues. The political parties can debate the means, but both parties must embrace the end objective, which is to make America great again.

The right decision is the wrong decision if it's made too late.

In a completely rational society, the best of us would aspire to be teachers and the rest of us would have to settle for something less, because passing civilization along from one generation to the next ought to be the highest honor and the highest responsibility anyone could have.

Don’t just stand there; make something happen.

Over the years, many executives have said to me with pride: 'Boy, I worked so hard last year that I didn't take any vacation.' I always feel like responding, "You dummy. You mean to tell me you can take responsibility for an eighty-million-dollar project and you can't plan two weeks out of the year to have some fun?

There's no great mystery to satisfying your customers. Build them a quality product and treat them with respect. It's that simple.

Formal learning can teach you a great deal, but many of the essential skills in life are the ones you have to develop on your own.

Listening can make the difference between a mediocre organization and a great one.

If you set a good example you need not worry about setting rules.

Business, after all, is nothing more than a bunch of human relationships.

To solve big problems you have to be willing to do unpopular things.

A major reason capable people fail to advance is that they don't work well with their colleagues.

I always go back to Harry Truman: Should we drop an atomic bomb to save 100,000 lives? That's a hell of a decision to make. Did he make that decision by himself? No, he had advisers.

We load up on oat bran in the morning so we'll live forever. Then we spend the rest of the day living like there's no tomorrow.

Leadership means setting an example. When you find yourself in a position of leadership, people follow your every move.

Your legacy should be that you made it better than it was when you got it.

Even a correct decision is wrong when it was taken too late.

I only wish I could find an institute that teaches people how to listen. Business people need to listen at least as much as they need to talk. Too many people fail to realize that real communication goes in both directions.

If I had to sum up in a word what makes a good manager, I'd say decisiveness. You can use the fanciest computers to gather the numbers, but in the end you have to set a timetable and act.

What is it that you like doing? If you don't like it, get out of it, because you'll be lousy at it. You don't have to stay with a job for the rest of your life, because if you don't like it you'll never be successful in it.

I was fortunate to get a scholarship when I went to Lehigh University and Princeton. They were both wonderful schools. Somebody was kind enough to spend their money to educate people that they would never get to know. That's what I think philanthropy is about.

The only mistake I ever made was not listening to my gut.

If we screw it up, start over. Try something else.

Be creative. Use unconventional thinking. And have the guts to carry it out.

It's a good thing god doesn't let you look a year or two into the future, or you might be sorely tempted to shoot yourself.

My father used to say, 'You can spend a lot of time making money. The tough time comes when you have to give it away properly.' How to give something back, that's the tough part in life.

The ability to concentrate and to use your time well is everything if you want to succeed in business--or almost anywhere else for that matter.

You've got to say, "I think that if I keep working at this and want it badly enough I can have it." It's called perseverance.