You have to listen to the people who have a negative opinion as well as those who have positive opinion. Just to make sure that you are blending all these opinions in your mind before a decision is made.
Carlos Ghosn
The time is right for electric cars - in fact the time is critical.
Any job very well done that has been carried out by a person who is fully dedicated is always a source of inspiration.
Employees are your most valuable assets. They are the heart and guts of a company. This doesn't mean that from time to time, you aren't going to do what is good for the company.
Electric cars are not going to take the market by storm, but it's going to be a gradual improvement.
Profit is the most global aspect of a business, and it is cross-functional.
You'll never convince me there is a hopeless situation or there is any finality in any success or any failure.
The role of leadership is to transform the complex situation into small pieces and prioritize them.
Incentives are not strategy, they are tactics. Defensive measures.
I mean, when you're a pioneer and you are at the forefront of an offensive, you're going to be the most optimistic person.
Electric cars are going to be very important for urban transportation.
If you have not been a villain at a certain point in time, you will never be a hero. And the day you are a hero, you may become a villain the next day.
There are always lessons that can be learned from another manufacturer. You can learn from their successes and from their mistakes also. But you cannot replicate; you can only learn.
I would say a good leader brings results. A great leader writes a new story, it's different. Obviously a new story has to incorporate a lot of results. But a story is a chapter in the life of a company that people want to write and want to remember.
People will always challenge you on an idea as long as it has not been concretized by somebody else.
Cars have a large engine in the front and you have a gearbox, which is cumbersome. Electric cars don't have this problem. The motor is much smaller, the battery is below you. This will allow you to play with different shapes.
As the CEO, I have to take care of the short term, mid term and the long term.
More and more, in any company, managers are dealing with different cultures. Companies are going global, but the teams are being divided and scattered all over the planet.
I don't believe in hostile moves. I don't believe they carry any value.
I think the new generation is much more demanding about respect for the environment than we have ever imagined.
I think we're going to have some difficulty in front of us. I have absolutely no doubt the next three, four years Europe are going to be at best stagnation. We are preparing for tough times.
Business is tough; you need tough guys.
In a difficult and uncertain environment, Renault remains on track to meet its 2012 objective.
When a company is facing a problem, it always takes a stance and takes a decision, but at the same time it wants to make sure of what it can learn from it, what enhancements it can make.
Talking about stepping down in five years is frankly not a topic of particular actuality now.
Synergies are not only about cost reduction. Synergies can be access to markets, exchange of products, avoiding overlaps, exchange of best practices.
I approve designs not because I think I am more gifted or somebody who can see ahead three or four years from now, but just to make sure that the design is a logical, rational decision, taken after analyzing pros and cons.
As an individual, not as the boss of a company, I am very interested in motor racing.
Commitment. This is my favorite word because in some way, people who are committed are always much more interesting and much more reliable, and much more, I would say, deep than people who are not.
In most companies people make a specific contribution to the company in their function. But it is not expressed in terms of profit, only in terms of performing their function better.
You don't implement change easily in Japan unless you explain very clearly why you need to do this change, how you're going to do this change and what's going to be the outcome of this change. If you offset or you forget to explain one of these three steps you're not going to do it.
I have my family, my children - I have a lot of outside activities.
When the CEO makes a decision, people don't come back on it.
Good is somebody who delivered and allowed the company to overcome obstacles, without leaving a profound impact on its culture. Great is somebody who leads his company to achievements and performance and value that nobody was expecting it had.
You don't build your character by doing what everybody else is doing.
What I worry about is not just Nissan, but Japanese manufacturers losing motivation to maintain production in Japan. The high yen is definitely a headwind.
At the age of 20 I bought a used Fiat 127. This was the only one I could afford!
If we come to the conclusion after 90 days that the synergies are big enough to justify the efforts, then we can go to the second step, which consists of saying: what would be the best organization and conditions - including shareholdings - in order to make sure the synergies happen.
We have some worse scenarios for which we need to prepare as companies. For the moment, we're planning for the worst, and the worst is now, and the car market is down more than 15 percent in France. There is so much uncertainty.
China will be the answer to Japan's problems.
Design is important, it's an important dimension in the car. It's not the only one.
If guys try to make a bigger company for the sake of size, they don't create value in most cases.
The Japanese people are usually very prudent, even when they are convinced change is necessary.
To face deflation, you have to have people accepting it and not reacting to it.
I think that the best training a top manager can be engaged in is management by example.
Don't believe what I say. Believe what I do.
Every single time you make a merger, somebody is losing his identity. And saying something different is just rubbish.
I love not to be busy in a certain way.
It would be easier to make money in other sectors, but since I was a kid, I liked cars.
I always loved cars. I don't know why, I can't explain it to you. It has always been with me.
