Lee Iacocca Quotes

The right decision is the wrong decision if it's made too late.

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

Start with good people, lay out the rules, communicate with your employees, motivate them and reward them. If you do all those things effectively, you can't miss.

Listening can make the difference between a mediocre organization and a great one.

In a completely rational society, the best of us would aspire to be teachers and the rest of us would have to settle for something less, because passing civilization along from one generation to the next ought to be the highest honor and the highest responsibility anyone could have.

To solve big problems you have to be willing to do unpopular things.

In times of great stress or adversity, it's always best to keep busy, to plow your anger and your energy into something positive.

Over the years, many executives have said to me with pride: 'Boy, I worked so hard last year that I didn't take any vacation.' I always feel like responding, "You dummy. You mean to tell me you can take responsibility for an eighty-million-dollar project and you can't plan two weeks out of the year to have some fun?

The great issues facing us today are not Republican issues or Democratic issues. The political parties can debate the means, but both parties must embrace the end objective, which is to make America great again.

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?

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.

Business, after all, is nothing more than a bunch of human relationships.

The discipline of writing something down is the first step toward making it happen.

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.

So what do we do? Anything. Something. So long as we just don't 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.

MBAs know everything but understand nothing.

Your legacy should be that you made it better than it was when you got it.

If you set a good example you need not worry about setting rules.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Don’t just stand there; make something happen.

Be creative. Use unconventional thinking. And have the guts to carry it out.