Lee Iacocca

My father always used to say that when you die, if you’ve got five real friends, then you’ve had a great life.

Lee Iacocca

No matter how I’m doing financially, the Depression has never disappeared from my consciousness. To this day, I hate waste. When neckties went from narrow to wide, I kept all my old ones until the style went back to narrow.

Lee Iacocca

Talk to people in their own language. If you do it well, they’ll say, ‘God, he said exactly what I was thinking.’ And when they begin to respect you, they’ll follow you to the death.

Lee Iacocca

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.

Lee Iacocca

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.

Lee Iacocca

The primary skill of a manager consists of knowing how to make assignments and picking the right people to carry out those assignments.

Lee Iacocca

There ain’t no free lunches in this country. And don’t go spending your whole life commiserating that you got raw deals. You’ve got to say, ‘I think that if I keep working at this and want it bad enough I can have it.’

Lee Iacocca

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.

Lee Iacocca

There are times when even the best manager is like the little boy with the big dog, waiting to see where the dog wants to go so he can take him there.

Lee Iacocca

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

Lee Iacocca