Passage from an ebook by Charlie Cook (The New Profit Rules):
> Lee Iacocca became president of the near-bankrupt Chrysler Corporation in 1978 with an ambitious recovery plan. Had he approached Chrysler’s problems sequentially – making cuts in operations, then making changes in marketing, next making improvements in product lines - the company would have been belly up long before his full plan went into effect.
> Instead, Iacocca took on every problem at once; firing inept management and replacing with his own trusted team, putting two new untested products on the road at once, offering a new, better warranty without possibly knowing what the future cost could be to the company, even placing himself in the company’s commercials as pitchman.
> Iacocca’s understanding of the critical need for speed is exemplified in one classic story. In 1981, no major American car manufacturer had built a convertible car for five years. Sensing an opportunity, Iacocca asked his lead engineer how long it would take to make a convertible for him to test a new convertible. The answer? Three years.
> Iacocca didn’t understand why it should take so long. It would take him 4 hours to take a chainsaw to a sedan and end up with a convertible, he said. Within a few days, Iacocca had a freshly-topless car to drive around to see if women would stare at him (his key indicator). They did, and the LeBaron convertible was born. It was a huge success, selling 21,000 units over projection in the first year.
> Lee Iacocca became president of the near-bankrupt Chrysler Corporation in 1978 with an ambitious recovery plan. Had he approached Chrysler’s problems sequentially – making cuts in operations, then making changes in marketing, next making improvements in product lines - the company would have been belly up long before his full plan went into effect.
> Instead, Iacocca took on every problem at once; firing inept management and replacing with his own trusted team, putting two new untested products on the road at once, offering a new, better warranty without possibly knowing what the future cost could be to the company, even placing himself in the company’s commercials as pitchman.
> Iacocca’s understanding of the critical need for speed is exemplified in one classic story. In 1981, no major American car manufacturer had built a convertible car for five years. Sensing an opportunity, Iacocca asked his lead engineer how long it would take to make a convertible for him to test a new convertible. The answer? Three years.
> Iacocca didn’t understand why it should take so long. It would take him 4 hours to take a chainsaw to a sedan and end up with a convertible, he said. Within a few days, Iacocca had a freshly-topless car to drive around to see if women would stare at him (his key indicator). They did, and the LeBaron convertible was born. It was a huge success, selling 21,000 units over projection in the first year.