Never ask anyone to do what you haven't done before and wouldn't do again. That's a pretty fundamental rule in leadership... treat them like you treat yourself. Things you don't like, they don't like.

If you can't stand a little sacrifice and you can't stand a trip across the desert with limited water, we're never going to straighten this country out.

The one thing I know through experience ... is that people don't know why they come to work until they don't have to come to work.

Inventories can be managed, but people must be led.

When building a team, I always search first for people who love to win. If I can't find any of those, I look for people who hate to lose.

I came from an environment where if you see a snake, you kill it. At General motors, if you see a snake, the first thing you do is to hire a consultant on snakes.

[In Moscow] we got through to [Soviet leaders] Brezhnev and Kosygin on the telephone. I think it was because nobody had ever tried to call them at home before.