Quotes By Lee Iacocca

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

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

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

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.

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

Chrysler builds great cars.

The one word that makes a good manager - decisiveness.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

It was emotional when Chrysler sold out to the Germans.

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

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 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.

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 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.

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

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

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