Quotes from Carlos Ghosn

The Japanese people are usually very prudent, even when they are convinced change is necessary.

You go to a plant not only to pat the people on the back, but to tell them about the opportunities they have to do a better job. Quality is one of the opportunities they have to do a better job.

As an individual, not as the boss of a company, I am very interested in motor racing.

Employees are your most valuable assets. They are the heart and guts of a company. This doesn't mean that from time to time, you aren't going to do what is good for the company.

Every single time you make a merger, somebody is losing his identity. And saying something different is just rubbish.

If you have not been a villain at a certain point in time, you will never be a hero. And the day you are a hero, you may become a villain the next day.

You have to be careful to react when you start to deviate from your course.

To face deflation, you have to have people accepting it and not reacting to it.

What I worry about is not just Nissan, but Japanese manufacturers losing motivation to maintain production in Japan. The high yen is definitely a headwind.

We have some worse scenarios for which we need to prepare as companies. For the moment, we're planning for the worst, and the worst is now, and the car market is down more than 15 percent in France. There is so much uncertainty.

Talking about stepping down in five years is frankly not a topic of particular actuality now.

I would say a good leader brings results. A great leader writes a new story, it's different. Obviously a new story has to incorporate a lot of results. But a story is a chapter in the life of a company that people want to write and want to remember.

I think we're going to have some difficulty in front of us. I have absolutely no doubt the next three, four years Europe are going to be at best stagnation. We are preparing for tough times.

Regulations about environments are going to get tougher and tougher.

The most interesting information I can have about a competitor is the cost.

I think that the best training a top manager can be engaged in is management by example.

The role of leadership is to transform the complex situation into small pieces and prioritize them.

We are not making a capital investment into GM as the first element or condition.

Cars have a large engine in the front and you have a gearbox, which is cumbersome. Electric cars don't have this problem. The motor is much smaller, the battery is below you. This will allow you to play with different shapes.

When you're CEO, you have to have two conditions: first, shareholders need to trust you and want you to head your company. The second is that you need to feel the motivation to do the job. So, as long as both are reunited, you continue to do the job.

Is Europe going to be breaking? I don't think so. I think the euro will stay. I think at the end of the day Europeans will find the solutions in order to hold Europe together.

When you're C.E.O., you have to have two conditions: first, shareholders need to trust you and want you to head your company. The second is that you need to feel the motivation to do the job. So, as long as both are reunited, you continue to do the job. And today, they are reunited.

The role of leadership is to transform the complex situation into small pieces and prioritize them.

Design is important, it's an important dimension in the car. It's not the only one.