Photo by Stella de Smit on Unsplash

They say a company’s best assets are its people, and there are a few dozen quotes out there that will tell you the exact same thing with slightly different words. Lee Iacocca said it too, but he also stressed how to keep those people at the company, entice them to do great work, and move the company forward every day.

Iacocca was born in 1924 in Allentown, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Allentown High School (now William Allen High School) in 1942, and later Lehigh University, with a degree in industrial engineering. He won the Wallace Memorial Fellowship and then set his sights on Princeton University, where he ultimately focused on politics and plastics. After putting school behind him, he began an engineering career at the Ford Motor Company.

Iacocca’s most notable work at Ford involved the “56 for 56” campaign, the design of the original Ford Mustang, the Lincoln Continental Mark III, and the Ford Escort, as well as other projects. He helped with the revival of the Mercury brand in the late 1960s, and he pitched several original ideas which unfortunately didn’t make it to market. After a clash with Henry Ford II – who ultimately fired him from the company – he continued to pursue his ideas at Chrystler.

When he took the reins at Chrysler, Iacocca started rebuilding the entire company from its very foundations. He issued a mass layoff, sold the wasteful Chrysler Europe division to Peugeot, and brought in a bunch of former associates from Ford. The reason he wanted these people back? Iacocca saw communication as crucial in any organization. Which brings us to our quote of the day:

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.

– Lee Iacocca

Other important achievements that Iacocca can hang on his wall are the Presidential Medal of Freedom (from President Lyndon B. Johnson) in 1969, and being inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 1996. He also met with U.S. President Bill Clinton in 1993 at the Oval Office (pictured above).