Lee Iacocca is an American automobile executive best known for spearheading the development of Ford Mustang and Pinto cars, while at the Ford Motor Company in the 1960s, and then later for reviving the Chrysler Corporation as its CEO during the 1980s. He served as President and CEO of Chrysler from 1978 and additionally as chairman from 1979, until his retirement at the end of 1992. Iacocca was a passionate advocate of U.S. business exports during the 1980s. He has authored or co-authored several books, including Iacocca: An Autobiography (with William Novak), and Where Have All the Leaders Gone? Portfolio named Iacocca the 18th-greatest American CEO of all time. May his quotes inspire you to use your time in a wise manner so that you may live your dreams.
1. “Get all the education you can, but then by God, do something. Don’t just stand there, make it happen.” Lee Iacocca
2. “Start with good people.” Lee Iacocca
3. “In the end, all business operations can be reduced to three words: people, product and profits. Unless you’ve got a good team, you can’t do much with the other two.” Lee Iacocca
4. “You can have brilliant ideas but if you can’t get them across, your ideas won’t get you anywhere.” Lee Iacocca
5. “Something useful is always born out of happiness.” Lee Iacocca
6. “Being honest is the best technique.” Lee Iacocca
7. “Motivation is everything. You can do the work of two people.” Lee Iacocca
8. “The speed of the boss is the speed of the team.” Lee Iacocca
9. “As you go through life, there are thousands of little forks in the road, and there are a few really big forks – those moments of reckoning, moments of truth.” Lee Iacocca
10. “In a completely rational society, the best of us would be teachers and the rest of us would have to settle for something less because passing civilization along from generation to the next ought to be the highest honor and the highest responsibility anyone could have.” Lee Iacocca
11. “I hire people brighter than me and then I get out of their way.” Lee Iacocca
12. “How to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness is in fact for most men at all times the secret motive of all they do, and of all they are willing to endure.” Lee Iacocca
13. “So what do we do? Anything. Something. So long as we just don’t just sit there. If we screw it up, start over. Try something else. If we wait until we’ve satisfied all the uncertainties, it may be too late.” Lee Iacocca
14. “I have to act to live.” Lee Iacocca
15. “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.” Lee Iacocca
16. “Management is nothing more than motivating other people.” Lee Iacocca
17. “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.” Lee Iacocca
18. “Pick good people and set the right priorities.” Lee Iacocca
19. “To solve big problems you have to be willing to do unpopular things.” Lee Iacocca
20. “In times of great stress or adversity, it’s always best to keep busy, to plow your anger and your energy into something positive.” Lee Iacocca
21. “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.” Lee Iacocca
22. “The greatest discovery of my generation is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.” Lee Iacocca
23. “To succeed today, you have to set priorities, decide what you stand for.” Lee Iacocca
24. “The one manager that makes a good manager – decisiveness.” Lee Iacocca
25. “The discipline of writing something down is the first step toward making it happen.” Lee Iacocca
26. “Talk to people in their own language.” Lee Iacocca
27. “I forgot to shake hands and be friendly. It was an important lesson about leadership.” Lee Iacocca
28. “Listening can make the difference between a mediocre organization and a great one.” Lee Iacocca
29. “Business people need to listen at least as much as they need to talk.” Lee Iacocca
30. “There is no substitute for accurate knowledge. Know yourself, know your business, know your men.” Lee Iacocca
31. “There’s no great mystery to satisfying your customers. Build them a quality product and treat them with respect. It’s that simple.” Lee Iacocca
32. “What is it that you like doing? If you don’t like it, get out of it because you’ll be lousy at it. You don’t have to stay with a job for the rest of your life because if you don’t like it you’ll never be successful in it.” Lee Iacocca
33. “The only mistake I ever made was not listening to my gut.” Lee Iacocca
34. “The thing that lies at the foundation of positive change, the way I see it, is service to a fellow human being.” Lee Iacocca
35. “The ability to concentrate and to use time well is everything.” Lee Iacocca
