Lee iacocca quotes

Incompetency begets incompetency. The last thing a guy who isn't sure of himself wants is a guy backing him up who is sure of himself.

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.

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.

I'd really love to meet the guy I'm supposed to be. I'd hire him in a second.

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

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.

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.

I learned about the strength you can get from a close family life. I learned to keep going, even in bad times. I learned not to despair, even when my world was falling apart. I learned that there are no free lunches. And I learned the value of hard work.

Here's what management is about: Pick good people and set the right priorities.

Bad times are indelible. They stay with you forever.

People want economy, and they'll pay any price to get it.

If you own up to your mistakes, you don't suffer as much. But that's a tough lesson to learn.

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

Greenmail, in case you're wondering, is when a company pays a raider a premium for his holdings-if he'll go away. What I think it really is is blackmail in a pin-striped suit.

I've got to get stop getting fired like this. People will start to think I'm a drifter.

They're on you day and night. Their oversight is just too extreme [. . .] That's why our 10-year loan, we paid it back in three years. We couldn't stand the government. The bureaucracy kills you.

There's a billboard in a little farm town in the Midwest that says: IF YOU COMPLAIN ABOUT FARMERS, DON'T TALK WITH YOUR MOUTH FULL.

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

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

There are times in everyone's life when something constructive is born out of adversity... when things seem so bad that you've got to grab your fate by the shoulders and shake it.

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

A country's competitiveness starts not on the factory floor or in the engineering lab. It starts in the classroom.

Chrysler builds great cars.

I was raised to give back. I was born to immigrant parents and was fortunate to become successful at an early age. I've always felt a strong sense of national service to my country, and I may have been able to provide leadership in the political arena. I don't regret the decision not to enter politics, I just wonder sometimes if I could have changed anything.

In business, you're trying to make a buck. God was good to me and blessed me. I made some money and started this foundation years ago, and it has grown in size. With the foundation it's a lot different, because the bottom line isn't how you can make more money or get a better return, it's helping the projects that you feel strongly about move forward.

The one word that makes a good manager - decisiveness.

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

Here's what we should be doing. We've got to get off fossil fuels.

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

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

Thanks to properly selecting the clients you will not be unnecessarily wasting time.

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.

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

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.

A good deal is a state of mind.

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

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.

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

I was good friends with Frank Sinatra, I heard Steve Kaufman painting his portrait, so I asked Steve to paint my portrait.

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

They've got about as many lawyers as we have sumo-wrestlers.

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

As you go through life, there are thousands of little forks in the road, and there are a few really big forks-those moments of reckoning, moments of truth.

A little righteous anger really brings out the best in the American personality. Our nation was born when 56 patriots got mad enough to sign the Declaration of Independence. We put a man on the moon because Sputnik made us mad at being number two in space. Getting mad in a constructive way is good for the soul- and the country.

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

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

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

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

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.

The primary skill of a manager consists of knowing how to make assignments and picking the right people to carry out those assignments

Get all the education you can then go out and do something - do anything.

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.

I'm sometimes described as a flamboyant leader and a hip-shooter, a fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants operator. But if that were true, I could never have been successful in this business.

What is it that you like doing? If you don't like it, get out of it, because you'll be lousy at it.

Most people are looking for security, a nice, safe, prosperous future. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's called the American Dream.

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

You can have brilliant ideas, but if you can't get them across, your ideas won't get you anywhere.

Never rest on your oars as a boss. If you do, the whole company starts sinking.

If we wait until we've satisfied all the uncertainties, it may be 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 succeed today, you have to set priorities, decide what you stand for.

The cement in our whole democracy today is the worker who makes $ 15 an hour. He's the guy who will buy a house and a car and a refrigerator. He's the oil in the engine.

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

No matter how I'm doing financially, the Depression has never disappeared from my consciousness. To this day, I hate waste. When neckties went from narrow to wide, I kept all my old ones until the style went back to narrow.

I don't need a $100 million mistake. Try to make a $5 million mistake if you have to make one.

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

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.

In the old days, if a neighbors apples fell into your yard, you worked it out over the back fence or picked them up and made pies. Today, you sue.

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

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.

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

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

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

Don’t just stand there; make something happen.

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

In the great undertakings, there is glory, even in failure.

If I Had To Sum Up In One Word The Qualities That Make Up A Good Manager, I'd Say Decisiveness.

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

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.

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?

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

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

Management is nothing more than motivating other people.

I learned that monthly payments are the cornerstone of everything in the automobile business.

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.

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.

Why is our free-enterprise system so strong?- Not because it stands still, frozen in the past, but because it has always adapted to changing realities

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.

It pains me to see my old company, which has meant so much to America, on the ropes. But Chrysler has been in trouble before, and we got through it, and I believe they can do it again... Let's face it, if your car breaks down, you're not going to take it to the White House to get fixed. But, if your company breaks down, you've got to go to the experts on the ground, not the bureaucrats.

MBAs know everything but understand nothing.

You, my friend, alone are equal to a hundred of such friends. Happy Birthday to you.

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

Styling cars sells cars and safety does not.

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

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.

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?

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

That's the American way. If little kids don't aspire to make money like I did, what the hell good is this country?

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

You can't have a country or a city or a state that's worth a damn unluss you govern within yourself in your day-to-day life.

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.

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

It was emotional when Chrysler sold out to the Germans.

If you make believe that ten guys in pin-striped suits are back in a kindergarten class playing with building blocks, you'll get a rough picture of what life in a corporation is like.

Life can be difficult for kids born with a gold spoon in their mouth, because they never really get to find out if they're able to work hard and make it on their own.

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

In business, I loved cars. I couldn't wait to get to work in the morning. Only in America can you decide to get a good education and pursue what you like.

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

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 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.

If your product is great, you yourself do not have to be a great seller.

There's a world of difference between a strong ego, which is essential, and a large ego-which can be destructive.

I'm still not sure what is meant by good fortune and success. I know fame and power are for the birds. But then life suddenly comes into focus for me. And, ah, there stand my kids.

From what I've seen, you either get grounded in that kind of positive thinking early on in life or you don't. Establishing priorities and using your time well aren't things you can pick up at the Harvard Business School. 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.

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 speed of the boss is the speed of the team.