Lee Iacocca Quotes

Democratic administration that put people ahead of ideology. Democrats usually do. They deal with labor, they deal with people, they deal with jobs. Republicans deal with trickle-down theories of investment.

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.

Beacham used to talk about street smarts, the things you just know, the basic lessons that can’t really be taught. “Remember, Lee,” he would say, “the only thing you’ve got going for you as a human being is your ability to reason and your common sense. That’s the only real advantage we’ve got over the apes. Remember, a horse is stronger and a dog is friendlier. So if you don’t know a dip of horseshit from a dip of vanilla ice cream — and a lot of guys don’t — that’s just too bad, because then you can never really make it.

But a major reason capable people fail to advance is that they don’t work well with their colleagues.

By their very nature, financial analysts tend to be defensive, conservative, and pessimistic. On the other side of the fence are the guys in sales and marketing — aggressive, speculative, and optimistic. They’re always saying, “Let’s do it,” while the bean counters are always cautioning you on why you shouldn’t do it. In any company you need both sides of the equation, because the natural tension between the two groups creates its own system of checks and balances.

after reaching the presidency I experienced a certain letdown. I had spent years climbing the mountain. When I finally made it to the top, I started to wonder why I had been in such a hurry to get there.

What the last fifty taught us was the difference between right and wrong, that only hard work succeeds, that there are no free lunches, that you’ve got to be productive. Those are the values that made this country great.

But engineering no longer interested me. The day I’d arrived, they had me designing a clutch spring. It had taken me an entire day to make a detailed drawing of it, and I said to myself: “What on earth am I doing? Is this how I want to be spending the rest of my life?” I wanted to stay at Ford, but not in engineering. I was eager to be where the real action was — marketing or sales. I liked working with people more than machines.

I began by reducing my own salary to $ 1.00 a year. Leadership means setting an example. When you find yourself in a position of leadership, people follow your every move. I don’t mean they invade your privacy, although there’s some of that, too. But when the leader talks, people listen. And when the leader acts, people watch. So you have to be careful about everything you say and everything you do.

But one thing was perfectly clear: John was sacrificing himself to save the company. He was over his head and he knew it. Although it meant the end of his own career, he bent over backward to make sure that the transition would go as smoothly as possible. He blew himself out of the water to bring Chrysler back to life. And that is the test of a real hero.

It seems that in the United States the one thing you can count on is that even during a depression, the rich get richer.

But I do think that our national leadership consists of too many lawyers and not enough people from business. I’d like to see a system where we brought in twenty top managers to run the business side of the country and maybe even paid them $1 million a year, tax-free. That would be a real incentive, and then we’d see a lot more talented people interested in public life.

Setbacks are a natural part of life, and you’ve got to be careful how you respond to them.

With a car, you can go anywhere you want.

the discipline of writing something down is the first step toward making it happen. In conversation, you can get away with all kinds of vagueness and nonsense, often without even realizing it. But there’s something about putting your thoughts on paper that forces you to get down to specifics. That way, it’s harder to deceive yourself — or anybody else.