Tag Archives: Detroit

Lee Iaccoca: Timing Is Everything In Life

Lee’s ability to concentrate got him through school but he was also a very lucky person. Even bad luck can sometimes be good, for example, his bout with rheumatic fever prevented Iaccoca from joining the war effort as part of the class of ’42. The patriotism for that war was immense but in frustration Lee did not participate while his fellow graduates died in combat. Instead, Lee went to Lehigh for his undergrad where he focused on engineering then shifted over to business; accounting, statistics and labour problems. Instead of going straight to Ford (because he loved the cars and had been accepted), Lee deferred starting out at Ford and went to Princeton for his masters. After graduation, the guy who had recruited Iaccoca originally at Ford was drafted into combat and by the time Lee was finished his masters, no one at Ford knew Lee. Fortunately, Iaccoca was persistent enough to speak directly with the former recruiter’s boss and he got onboard.

Another example of timing is when Lee worked at Chester as a Sales rep, he was working in a booming period between 1945 and 1950 because during WWII car production was very low. All new cars were sold at list price or more, and used cars could be taken in (even if those cars were horrible) and a profit margin could be secured. Fleet sales meant allocating new cars to dealerships…since Lee was in sales, and there was a backlog of car orders, this gave him a lot of power at an early age.

One last example of good timing is that the Chrysler bailout for $1.5 billion would not have happened if it occurred 3 years after 1979 (when Ford and GM were also in serious trouble) since other car makers would have competed directly with Chrysler for attention. Timing matters!

Good timing is everything in life.

This is a synopsis & analysis based on Iacocca: An Autobiography and other miscellaneous research sources. Enjoy.

Lee Iacocca: Education is Concentration & Time Management

The ability to concentrate as well as time management is key in business and Lee Iacocca learnt this in school. He had the discipline to say: “let’s get this done in the next 3 hours and then enjoy something else.” He would work hard during the week and set-aside time during the weekend to spend with family and friends. His approach was built from his parent’s experience. His father was an entrepreneur because that was what Italian immigrants typically did in Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, the Great Depression destroyed Iacocca senior’s businesses, which he had mortgaged to the hilt.

Lee Iacocca grew up in Allentown, Pennsylvania and promised to get the education his father could not have in his native Naples, Italy. The pressure from his father, and the personal drive to success led Lee to get top grades in his high school. He had supportive teachers in debating and mathematics. The core lesson was not to memorize facts but rather to understand how to use facts to position an argument. In other words, he solidified a methodology for attacking problems. He ran for student president and learned (the hard way) that understanding people would help you as a leader. His parents taught him to apply himself, get an education and DO SOMETHING!

This is a synopsis & analysis based on Iacocca: An Autobiography and other miscellaneous research sources. Enjoy.

Z World Detroit

This is a crazy Zombie Apocalypse idea from an entrepreneur in Detroit. It actually isn’t that bad. They need to prove that they have a winning team that it committed to making the business work. Hopefully they have someone who has managed DisneyWorld or a theme park on their board. It’s more comparable to a paintball facility than a traditional theme park, so you will have to look at paintball clubs and they scaling problem. The experience has to be fool proof (ie. no accidentally falling to their death while evading a horde of zombies).

That might be tough to pull off without a risk of law suits, and they will have to strike a balance between authenticity and safety. Also, Detroit is very cold in January so it’s likely that demand will drop during the harsh winters months, and so this is a season-based theme park which further cuts into revenue. If people from across the world come to experience the park, then how will Z World manage the volume of guests versus number of zombies? The cost of one zombie employee versus the fee for a guest would also be a concern.

It will be hard to scale when the entertainment is the zombie employees themselves. You have to assume that a guest who has become a zombie will relish the chance to act like a zombie as well. It’s possible that in the process of creating a Zombie theme park, you will have a giant hide-and-go seek game instead since some guests will not want to act like a zombie, as zombies are usually slow and not too sharp. Like a paintball tournament, I guess everyone will want to be the one survivor of Z World. Will the guests actually enjoy trying to survive this over 24 hours? It’s an ambitious project, I hope that it is a success.