Top 132 Quotes & Sayings by Lee Iacocca
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American businessman Lee Iacocca.
Last updated on November 3, 2024.
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.
The affections are like lightning: you cannot tell where they will strike till they have fallen.
The one word that makes a good manager - decisiveness.
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.
People want economy and they will pay any price to get it.
I was at Ford for 32 years. I went to Chrysler in 1978, four or five months after I got canned by Henry Ford.
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.
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.
It was emotional when Chrysler sold out to the Germans.
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.
In a corporation, there can only be one guy in the end: the CEO.
Apply yourself. Get all the education you can, but then, by God, do something. Don't just stand there, make it happen.
You can have brilliant ideas, but if you can't get them across, your ideas won't get you anywhere.
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.
To succeed today, you have to set priorities, decide what you stand for.
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.
We've got to pause and ask ourselves: How much clean air do we need?
There is no substitute for accurate knowledge. Know yourself, know your business, know your men.
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?
I've always found that the speed of the boss is the speed of the team.
The speed of the boss is the speed of the team.
Management is nothing more than motivating other people.
In a completely rational society, the best of us would be teachers and the rest of us would have to settle for something else.
Every business and every product has risks. You can't get around it.
The trick is to make sure you don't die waiting for prosperity to come.
In the end, all business operations can be reduced to three words: people, product, and profits.
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.
I guess I invented extended warranties, because that's all we had to sell at Chrysler in those days.
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.
Chrysler builds great cars.
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.
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.
My father always used to say that when you die, if you've got five real friends, then you've had a great life.
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.
We are continually faced by great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems.
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 only rock I know that stays steady, the only institution I know that works, is the family.
We at Chrysler borrow money the old-fashioned way. We pay it back.
Any supervisor worth his salt would rather deal with people who attempt too much than with those who try too little.
If a guy is over 25 percent jerk, he's in trouble. And Henry was 95 percent.
The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.
I hire people brighter than me and then I get out of their way.
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.
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.
Decisiveness is the one word that makes a good manager.
The ability to concentrate and to use time well is everything.
In times of great stress or adversity, it's always best to keep busy, to plow your anger and your energy into something positive.
I forgot to shake hands and be friendly. It was an important lesson about leadership.
The discipline of writing something down is the first step toward making it happen.
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.
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?
Even a correct decision is wrong when it was taken too late.
Mistakes are a part of life; you can't avoid them. All you can hope is that they won't be too expensive and that you don't make the same mistake twice.
To solve big problems you have to be willing to do unpopular things.
If you set a good example you need not worry about setting rules.
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.
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.
Listening can make the difference between a mediocre organization and a great one.
A country's competitiveness starts not on the factory floor or in the engineering lab. It starts in the classroom.
The right decision is the wrong decision if it's made too late.
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