A guy named Charlie Beacham was my first mentor at Ford. He taught me the importance of the dealers, and he rubbed my nose in the retail business.

If a guy is over 25 percent jerk, he's in trouble. And Henry was 95 percent.

If I had to sum up in a word what makes a good manager, I'd say decisiveness. You can use the fanciest computers to gather the numbers, but in the end you have to set a timetable and act.

Every business and every product has risks. You can't get around it.

I was at Ford for 32 years. I went to Chrysler in 1978, four or five months after I got canned by Henry Ford.

One of the best ones out there was a guy named Howard Cosell. He was the best.