You have to pretend you're 100 percent sure. You have to take action; you can't hesitate or hedge your bets. Anything less will condemn your efforts to failure.

How can you motivate yourself to continue to follow a leader when he appears to be going around in circles?

Pickups, S.U.V.'s, vans and the like represent about 80 million vehicles, with mileage of perhaps 13 to 16 miles per gallon. Converting those should be our first priority.

The future is going to take care of itself, like it always has.

The most important role of managers is to create environment in which people are passionately dedicated to winning in marketplace.

There's a tendency at the senior and middle-manager level to be too big-picturish and too superficial. There is a phrase, "The devil is in the details." One can formulate brilliant global strategies whose executability is zero. It's only through familiarity with details - the capability of the individuals who have to execute, the marketplace, the timing - that a good strategy emerges. I like to work from details to big pictures.

You need to plan the way a fire department plans: it cannot anticipate where the next fire will be, so it has to shape an energetic and efficient team that is capable of responding to the unanticipated as well as to any ordinary event.