Customer Reviews

Iacocca: An Autobiography

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3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I opted to read this book out of curiosity on how Lee lead Chrysler the way that he did; I was also surprised to learn about his beginnings with FORD. This book is a sort of "in your face" look at how management and leadership worked at both Chrysler and Ford to bring about successes. If you're in management or a leadership role, this book makes for good reading, and you may find yourself referring back to periodically--I have. There are some excellent points that remain quite valid in today's corporate environment. I think that Iacocca's comment: "Good leaders know how to follow their people.", says a lot about one's role in a leadership capacity, and what a good leader should be capable of. Good leaders should lead, but they should also know when to listen to their people. This book is a keeper!

Iacocca, an Autobiography, by Lee Iacocca with William Novak

A few concepts and quotes stayed with me from this book:

Every Sunday Lee would make a list of what it is he wanted to accomplish in the upcoming week.

"I began my life as the son of immigrants and I worked my way up to the president of the Ford Motor Company. When I finally got there, I was on top of the world. But then fate said to me: "Wait. We're not finished with you. Now your going to find out what it feels like to get kicked off Mt. Everest!"

"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. This was mine as I wondered what to do."

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

""Don't get mad," Mary reminded me. "Get Even" In times of great stress and adversity, it's always best to keep busy, to plow your anger and your energy into something positive"

His father would tell him, "You've got to accept a little sorrow in life. You'll never know what happiness is unless you have something to compare it to."

"The most important thing I learned in school was how to communicate. Miss Raber, our ninth grade teacher...would quiz us on the Word Power Game from Readers Digest. Without any advance warning she'd rip it out the magazine and make us take the vocabulary test. It became a powerful habit with me-to this day I still look for the list of words in every issue of the Digest"

"Setbacks are a natural part of life, and you've got to be careful of how you respond with them."

The book talks about how Lee rose through the ranks at Ford as well as his beliefs and strategies that he has picked up through the years. If you want to learn and grow, read about leaders, and people that have overcome adversities.

By Kevin Kingston, author of, "A 20,000% Gain in Real Estate"

(...)

If Business Executives had a Hall of Fame, Iacocca would probably have a floor dedicated to him.

Iacocca life was a wilder then a roller coast, his failures made headlines across the nation and his successes were larger then life. He spent eight years as the running Ford only to fired in his prime, only to enjoy revenge in an almost truly capitalistic way by taking an another company out of bankruptcy and making it succeed again.

It's the story of an ordinary guy who wanted to design cars and instead decided to sell them. Along the way he ended up as President of one company and Chief Executive at another one and became a household name all the while.

Iacocca is interesting and inspiring, a great book for Business men and women and even better book for ordinary folk just like he was.

I remember back when this book hit the best seller list and everybody was reading it. Alot has changed since then, especially in the auto industry. Now this book will be taken more for it's historic value than how business currently operates. Management techniques have changed drastically and Iaccoca is no longer head of Chrysler, but he is an interesting man and tells us quite a good story. This is also a fine study of what was wrong with American car companies and why they couldn't seem to compete in the 70's and 80's. Car buffs will especially be attracted to this book, but it definitely has universal appeal.

Lee Iacocca was a brilliant salesman, a workaholic, and a resourceful businessman. Throughout history, at the heart of the American automobile industry there have always been men of advanced practicality that shaped the nation as a worldwide power; Iacocca clearly belongs among its best.

Iacocca's autobiography details early childhood, his entry as a salesman into the auto industry, time with Ford including overseeing the development of the Mustang, and saving Chrysler including details on the government bailout loan he negotiated to save the flailing company. There is no doubt the auto industry would look far differently had Iacocca never existed. His footprint will be forever felt and his life lessons should be part of any business study. Iacocca presents his life story in detail using a presentation style that is both appealing and unrestrained. I recommend this book to anyone with an interest in business history.

Lee Iacocca, the corporate icon of the "go go" era, recounts (with co-writer William Novak) how he did it his way, with a little help from his friends. He sets the record straight about insinuations that he was a flamboyant flash in the pan or had Mafia ties. A sense of honesty pervades his narrative, which often reveals more about the man than he probably intended. This 1984 classic is a cultural account of a time when American manufacturing was full of vitality, and marketing was simpler and more direct. At the time, experts warned Iacocca that you can know too much about everything and that a flood of information will just slow you down. He decided to know it all, anyway. His philosophy, well expressed between anecdotes, seems almost naïve now, certainly when contrasted with the ruthlessness of his nemesis, Henry Ford II. Iacocca gets the last laugh with his insider descriptions of life in the corporate glass house. getAbstract recommends this frank, refreshing yarn to postboomer business leaders, managers on the ascent, car buffs and manufacturers who operate within a dealer network.

Iacocca tells the story of his rise to being one of the major business people in the United States. In it he reveals his own innovative way of thinking, and how that enabled him to provide new answers for industrial problems. He is a tough customer who knows what he is talking about.

Lee Iacocca's autobiography is probably the most famous biography ever written (It is, the last time I checked, one of the 25 biggest selling books in the history of such things.), and at one time a "must read" by any business school student or aspiring CEO. The trouble is, that this is a highly prejudicial, one-person account, and as such is obviously biased. (If you want a better history of the Ford Motor Company than this provides, you may also want to check out David Halberstam's "The Reckoning" and Robert Lacey's "Ford: The Men and the Machines.") Still, the information provided about the inner workings and politics of the Ford Motor Company (in the 60s to late 70s) and the Chrysler Corporation (through the 80s), this is a very interesting read.

With the exceptions of a few automotive judgements (the Mustang II as "a terrific design", and the K-car as "a sensational product") and specific automotive knowledge (the Chevrolet Vega's "pancake engine"--there is such a thing, and the Vega did not offer one--and his citing of the impossibility of the American industry to make money on small cars came six years before General Motors successfully launched Saturn), everything is very relevant despite its age. The concept of "Global Motors," a proposed merger that would have joined Chrysler, Mitsubishi and Volkswagen, seems prophetic now that Chrysler, Mitsubishi and Mercedes are joined at the hip.

I wanted to rate this 3 1/2 stars; since that was not possible, the extra 1/2 star is given because proceeds from the sale of the book, at least when it was in hardcover, went for diabetes research. (Iacocca's first wife, Mary, died from complications from the disease.)

Suprisingly, the life of a CEO can be just like our own. The numbers are bigger. But I don't mean money. Lee Iacocca doesn't come off as someone living in luxury, even though I'm sure he's rich. Rather, that when he would get up in the morning to solve a problem for Chrysler employees, he was thinking about 420,000 of them. Still, the same worries: career progress, don't get blindsided by personal politics (he did, by Henry Ford II), and make sure to be home to enjoy family. And do a good job. If you want an uncompromising paean to capitalism, read Ayn Rand. But if you want a successful view, balanced by doubts and compromises, Iacocca's your man. The book's a page-turner too, and with all credit to William Novak, I sense that it's Iacocca's real life, and real character, that make for the exciting plot.

This book is definitely a slap in the face of Henry Ford.

A very good read, interesting and inspiring book for people with a flare for business. It wakes you up with a jolt, makes you sit up and say to yourself, what the heck am i doing sleeping over my skills. It instills in you a driving force to go for what you want to achieve in life/.

Lee's, sacrifices for his goals, are amazing. His belief in himself and his ability to make others believe in him is undoubtedly the best quality in Lee and which every businessman/woman should learn from.

It is time for the bosses around the world to sit back and think that employees can sometimes be better than yourself and still not cheat or be disloyal to you. That was what Lee was to Ford. But Henry was too blind. And chrysler was too damn lucky.