Leadership is having a compelling vision, a comprehensive plan, relentless implementation, and talented people working together.
An important part of leadership is being able to hold two things in your mind at once: Dealing with the reality, whatever it may be, and focus on hope for the future. Any leader helping an organization through challenges needs to be able to do both.
The One Ford plan drives the business to get PGA, Profitable Growth for All, meaning that every year we increase the profits and cash flow. So how do we do that? We serve all the markets around the world with a complete family of vehicles and use the One Ford Plan.
When people feel accountable and included, it is more fun.
I really do believe that working together works, and it's amazing to me.
You can't manage a secret.
Think about just exceeding expectations of every job you're being asked to do. Continually ask for feedback on how it's going. Ask everybody involved what you can do to do an even better job, and the world will beat down your door trying to ask you to do more and more.
It's all about competitiveness: are you making the products that people really do want and value, and are you making it more efficiently and using less resources and less time than the competition?
If you have to improve your fuel efficiency every year, it leads to innovation.
No country is ever successful in the long term... without a really strong and vibrant manufacturing base.
Because of the Internet of Things, we're all going to be connected.
The most important thing is to simultaneously deal with reality - really the way it is, not the way you wished it could be or you hoped it could be - but also have a vision about where you want to go.
I love hanging out with skilled and motivated people.
If you get honest feedback and do nothing about it, then the feedback will stop.
I can remember the first time I tried to drive into the garage of the world headquarters of Ford in a Camry. It was almost like they wouldn't let me in. They said, 'Why do you want to do that?' I said, 'Because we are going to make the best cars in the world, and we need to know everything about the competitor's car.'
You need to have a can-do attitude. There is always a way.
The more senior your management position is, the more important it is to connect the organization or the project to the outside world. You know, how does this fit in with what we're doing? What is the real goal, the real mission?
The purpose of life is to love and be loved... what could possibly be more energizing than that?
The most important thing is the fact we have created this successful and sustainable Ford Motor Co. worldwide. I have no regrets.
Where you really get in trouble is if the market is dropping and the economy's slowing down and you don't take action.
