A biography for Lee Iacoccahasn’t been written yet.
“The one word that makes a good manager - decisiveness.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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 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.”
“We at Chrysler borrow money the old-fashioned way. We pay it back.”
“Management is nothing more than motivating other people.”
“My father always used to say that when you die, if you've got five real friends, then you've had a great life.”
“Decisiveness is the one word that makes a good manager.”
“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.”
“I've always found that the speed of the boss is the speed of the team.”
“The trick is to make sure you don't die waiting for prosperity to come.”
“We are continually faced by great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems.”
“In the end, all business operations can be reduced to three words: people, product, and profits.”
“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.”
“It was emotional when Chrysler sold out to the Germans.”
“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.”
“You can have brilliant ideas, but if you can't get them across, your ideas won't get you anywhere.”
“I was at Ford for 32 years. I went to Chrysler in 1978, four or five months after I got canned by Henry Ford.”