Book Review — Me & Lee Iacocca
“Iacocca reads like Iacocca talks … the voice is unmistakable.… He is a big guy (6 ft. 1 in., 194 lbs.), a driven guy, an earthy, passionate, volatile, funny, and profane guy, a talkative guy who tells it like it is, who grabs for gusto, who damns the torpedoes, and plunges full-speed ahead.” — Time Magazine review of the book “Iacocca”
I woke up on July 3rd 2019 to learn that Lee Iacocca has left this world. I knew this day would come but I was never prepared for it. Lee changed my life, though we never met (I am sure he knows nothing about my existence).
Lee Iacocca did two big things for the world of transport — he led two iconic American car companies and pushed them to produce two revolutionary cars — the Mustang (classy car of the 60s and minivan’s (holiday car for the growing mid-class) of the 70s/80s. Lee bailed out Chrysler from bankruptcy via a Federal loan, which Chrysler paid back. On the day he paid back the money this is what he said “This is the day that makes the last three miserable years all seem worthwhile. We at Chrysler borrow money the old-fashioned way. We pay it back.” Lee Iacocca was known for never holding back an opinion
As a teenager, I listened to Mike Murdock a lot and he talked about two business leaders that he fancied. One was Donald Trump and the other Lee Iacocca. So the day I bought Lee’s autobiography, I said bye to sleep for that night. I read it cover to cover. I re-read it (the book is about 350 pages). It was like listening to the Gaffer speak directly to you.
I opened the book again on July 4th, 2019. The book is filled with markings. That book was the first business book I ever read. I gave it to anybody or anything within my breathable distance. Friends have been calling/texting ever since they heard about his demise. They have fond memories of that book. But they call also to empathize with me, the lost “grandson” of the American icon. Hahahaha.
In 1984, he co-authored (with William Novak) an autobiography, titled Iacocca: An Autobiography. It was the best selling non-fiction hardback book of 1984 and 1985. This is the book I am talking about. Here is what he (Lee) thought about the book:
“Nobody was more surprised than I was when this book jumped to number one on the best-seller list the first week it was published. People started asking me how a book with no sex, no violence, and no spies could sell so well. I honestly didn’t know, and I was supposed to be a marketing genius.
After all, this is just a story about a kid from a good immigrant family who studied hard and worked hard, who had some big successes and some big disappointments, and who made out fine in the end because of the simple values he learned from his parents and teachers, and because he had the good luck to live in America. This is not the kind of book that is supposed to set publishing records, but it did.”
That book gave me hope. His rags to riches story, his Italian heritage (one of my sons has a full-blown, unmistakable Italian name) and his work to protect the immigrant community via the restoration of the Statue of Liberty. That book gave me direction for my life as per career choice; it made me veer off from loving engineering to embracing the world of business.
When he was booted out of Ford, he said he was too old to start a new career but also too young to retire. He got many offers but selling cars was in his blood and so Chrysler was the logical offer to take since GM was just too big for him to try anything new.
I learnt that his real name was Lido Iacocca but he thought it wise to shorten it to Lee because he was not ready to explain himself / origin to anyone. It worked especially for his sales career. Call it “self-invention”. I remember how he talked about taking his dad to a golf course. Instead of the man to follow the ball after hitting it, he would run after it. Lee told his dad to walk but his dad asked why he should walk to the ball when he could run.
That book opened my eyes to the world. He said when he got into the President of Ford Motors, he was not only amongst the first-class princes of the world; he was royal class. He said $1million (circa 1984) is the money that you keep in the drawer to solve office issues. Imagine that. I was as broke as brokenness but that book elevated my thoughts.
He helped me with my career choice. I studied Engineering and he said if you get up in your career, you will only be the chief engineer but if you veer off to the business side of the business (sales, marketing, corporate planning etc), you are bound to have a good mix that could catapult you to the C-suite. He explained his sales career in a nice way and I saw his point of view. From that point on, I started reading business books instead of my engineering books. I fell in love with business. On July 3rd 2019, I was invited to a Chemical Engineering meeting. I smiled. That was my other life that Lee Iacocca convinced me to leave behind. Maybe I was being sent a message from the heavens. What a coincidence!!!
I learnt from Lee about the usefulness of private jets. He said they were transportation tools and nothing more. As the CEO, he needed to be in several places in one day (factory, social function, corporate meeting with suppliers etc) and there was no way that a commercial flight can accommodate that.
Whenever I remember today’s business clime, I always think of Lee. Lee lived in the times of anti-trust. What Google, Amazon, Facebook etc are doing today could not be done in his time. I know he would have bought some car companies and amalgamated them with Chrysler but the times and clime were not favourable.
When Henry Ford was selected as one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th, the honour fell on Lee to write about him. He did write a fair piece on a man whose family dealt with him. It was a nice read about Ford’s contribution to the auto industry. Please read it.
Lee had his good days and bad days in life. Some people said his name “IACOCCA” meant “ I Am Chairman Of Chrysler Corporation America”. Hahahahaha. “I am a democrat until the point of decision” was one mantra I learnt early in life from him. It made me a decisive person. He talked about his personal adversities — sacked from Ford, losing his wife to diabetes, trying to fit in etc. — those things, he said, made him stronger. He said adversity pulls everyone together.
One thing that made him stand out was how he went about to make his point. Hear him…
On being fired by Ford: “And I didn’t write this book to get back at Henry Ford for firing me.I’ve already done that the old-fashioned American way — by fighting it out in the marketplace”.
On the size of his office at Ford: “The office of the president was the size of a grand hotel suite. I had my, own bathroom. I even had my own living quarters. As a senior Ford executive, I was served by white-coated waiters who were on call all day. I once brought some relatives from Italy to see where I worked, and they thought they had died and gone to heaven”.
Here are some other quotes from that book…
“Get all the education you can, but then by God, do something. Don’t just stand there, make it happen.”
“The discipline of writing something down is the first step toward making it happen.”
“Management is nothing more than motivating other people.”
“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.”
“When the product is right, you don’t have to be a great marketer.”
“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.”
“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.”
“In the end, all business operations can be reduced to three words: people, product, and profits.”
The next quote sounds like someone you know….very relevant
This was Lee Iacocca in 1984.
“The chapter (in his book) “Making America Great Again” drew more comments than any other because it touched a raw nerve. Americans are not going to accept second-class status in the world. Maybe some of our leaders aren’t too alarmed about our country’s losing its ability to compete, but my mailbag has convinced me that the American people won’t stand for it”
Remember I coincidentally mentioned him and Donald Trump earlier. Do they sound similar?MAGA did not start today.
Finally, Lee loved his alumni university — Lehigh University and promoted it with all he had. He made Lehigh University popular. “At Lehigh, he led the fundraising campaign to purchase the 742-acre Mountaintop Campus (which now houses the College of Education and several academic departments and programs) from Bethlehem Steel and jointly started the Iacocca Institute, an organization dedicated to increasing the global competitiveness of American organizations. In honour of Iacocca’s contributions to the university, Lehigh established four Iacocca chairs in 1991 — one in each college — as well as the Iacocca Scholarship. He also served as an honorary trustee of the university and was an honorary co-chair of the current $1 billion comprehensive GO: The Campaign for Lehigh, the largest fundraising effort in the university’s history”
When Cathy Engelbert, @CathyEngelbert, the incoming Women NBA commissioner (then CEO of Delloite), gave the commencement speech at my commencement in Fuqua Business School, Duke University mentioned that she graduated from Lehigh, I felt a kindred spirit. Funny right? I was in Duke and I was thinking of Lehigh.
Goodnight Lee.
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You can check other uplifting articles as per book review that I have written on Book Review: “Delivering Happiness” by Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos
Regards,
Gabriel
