Quotes from Lee Iacocca

Don't just stand there; make something happen.

Even a correct decision is wrong when it was taken too late.

There's no great mystery to satisfying your customers. Build them a quality product and treat them with respect. It's that simple.

Leadership means setting an example. When you find yourself in a position of leadership, people follow your every move.

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

Mistakes are a part of life; you can't avoid them. All you can hope is that they won't be too expensive and that you don't make the same mistake twice.

Formal learning can teach you a great deal, but many of the essential skills in life are the ones you have to develop on your own.

If you make believe that ten guys in pin-striped suits are back in a kindergarten class playing with building blocks, you'll get a rough picture of what life in a corporation is like.

There are times in everyone's life when something constructive is born out of adversity... when things seem so bad that you've got to grab your fate by the shoulders and shake it.

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

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.

You can aim at a duck and get it in your sights, but the duck is always moving. In order to hit the duck, you have to move your gun. But a committee faced with a major decision can't always move as quickly as the events it's trying to respond to. By the time the committee is ready to shoot, the duck has flown away.

The trouble with you, Phil, is that you went to Harvard, where they taught you not to take any action until you've got all the facts. You've got ninety-five percent of them, but it's going to take you another six months to get that last five percent. And by the time you do, your facts will be out of date because the market has moved on you. That's what life is all about—timing.

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.

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

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.

I'm still not sure what is meant by good fortune and success. I know fame and power are for the birds. But then life suddenly comes into focus for me. And, ah, there stand my kids.

My father used to say, 'You can spend a lot of time making money. The tough time comes when you have to give it away properly.' How to give something back, that's the tough part in 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.

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

You can't have a country or a city or a state that's worth a damn unluss you govern within yourself in your day-to-day life.

Decisiveness is the one word that makes a good manager.