Quotes By Lee Iacocca

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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 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.

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?

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

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

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

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.

Decisiveness is the one word that makes a good manager.