Where Have All the Leaders Gone?

by Lee Iacocca

  I’ve had a lot of time to contemplate this matter, having spent my career in the car industry. Automobile-related damages account for half of all the civil lawsuits in this country, and for half of all the compensations paid. Whenever there’s a serious accident, the automakers end up with a liability suit, whether the car had anything to do with it or not.

  I spent most of my career trying to find ways to make cars safer. I was involved in creating the interlock seat belt system. If your seat belt wasn’t hooked up, the car wouldn’t start. The House of Representatives shot that down in a hurry. They thought it was too intrusive on the part of the federal government. But at least every state now has some kind of law mandating seat belt use.

  Cars today are built for safety. Not just the air bags, rollover bags, and crush zones, but also the way steering wheels are designed with controls at your fingertips. We decided that when you’re driving a four-thousand-pound piece of iron at fifty to seventy-five miles an hour, it’s a good idea to keep your hands on the wheel. Which, by the way, Californians notoriously don’t do. As Red Buttons once said, “All you need to qualify for a driver’s license out here is a middle finger.”

  But the greatest safety challenge of all is changing the way people behave when they’re behind the wheel. And what really gets me about all the litigation is that it takes the idea of personal responsibility right off the table.

  In 1980, when I was new at Chrysler, a woman named Candi Lightner started an organization called Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD). Candi’s thirteen-year-old daughter had been mowed down by a drunk driver while walking down a country road. Candi was devastated by the death of her daughter, but when Candi found out that half of all fatalities were caused by drunk drivers, she was, well, mad. Candi’s organization, MADD, has saved hundreds of thousands of lives since its start.

  Now I’d like to see another organization formed. Let’s call it Mothers Against Distracted Driving. Distraction is what kills people on the road today.

  Morning drive time can be hazardous to your health. You’ve got someone in a five-thousand-pound SUV, juggling a hot cup of coffee, while using the vanity mirror to apply lipstick. You’ve got someone else in a four-thousand-pound sedan jabbering on a cell phone while lighting a cigarette. You’ve got a third person in a three-thousand-pound minivan trying to read the instructions on the navigation system, while catching the morning scream-fest on talk radio and the sibling scream-fest in the backseat. And someone else is zipping in and out of traffic in a sporty coupe, while getting stock quotes on his cell phone and eating an egg sandwich.

  Is anyone watching the road?

  I know that Mothers Against Distracted Driving would be a hard sell. People don’t like interference. I also admit that I inadvertently contributed to the distraction problem by designing the first cupholders and driver-side vanity mirrors.

  Of course, I realize that there’s no test for distraction like there is for alcohol, so it would be kind of hard to enforce any kind of regulations. But maybe car companies could limit the technology a bit. Just because it’s possible to hook up video screens in cars, it doesn’t mean we have to do it. I’d like to propose that we strictly limit all video in the front seat.

  Regulations only go so far. We could all vow, on our own, without a single law, to get behind the wheel, place our hands at the two o’clock and ten o’clock positions, face forward, eyes on the road—and drive with all due respect for that big hunk of iron. We can do it for ourselves, and for our children, and for the countless strangers whose paths we cross. Respect for others, responsibility for ourselves and others—these are basic tenets of a civilized society. Why don’t we take them out for a spin?

  PART FOUR

  CAN AMERICA BE GREAT AGAIN?

  XVII

  Are we too fat and satisfied for our own good?

  You don’t have to be a genius to see that a nation full of overeating, pill-popping, TV-watching, iPod-wired, shopaholic, attention-deficit-disordered people is not going to make it. We could be headed for extinction if we don’t watch out. And if we really do aspire to be great again, we’ve got our work cut out for us.

  If this is the price of success, I’d rather lose.

  I want to talk about a few of the things I’m experiencing these days that disturb me about our culture. These are more than just pet peeves. In many ways we’ve lost our compass, and we don’t know whether we’re coming or going. Leadership isn’t just a matter of putting someone at the front of the parade—unless you’re a lemming. All of us have to develop leadership qualities and nurture them in our children. Qualities such as responsibility, accountability, discipline, and community spirit.

  GARBAGE IN, GARBAGE OUT

  Sometimes I wonder if we’d be better off with less success. Maybe our minds are getting a little warped. We have five hundred TV channels, plus the Internet. Too much TV, too much Internet, too many e-mails. I’m not knocking computers, but as the saying goes, garbage in, garbage out. Do you ever stop and think about how you’re actually benefiting from this brave new computer world? I made the mistake of giving my cousin my e-mail address. This guy loves to tell jokes. He sent me fifty-three jokes—all dirty. Who has the time—or the interest?

  Our society is the most affluent in the history of mankind. Nobody ever had it so good, and yet all you ever hear about is how depressed everyone is, how anxious, how nervous. What’s going on? I’d like to see the statistics for how many other countries in the world are being plagued by similar ills. I wonder how many Japanese and Chinese kids are being treated for ADD/ADHD.

  Isn’t it time for us to admit that we’ve become a pill-pop-ping society? We think there’s a little blue or white or pink or yellow pill for whatever ails us, and the drug companies are even selling direct to the customer big time. “Ask your doctor if [fill in the blank medication] is right for you.” If we’re not careful, we’re going to medicate ourselves right out of being.

  THE ISSUE THAT EATS AT ME

  Sometimes the dichotomy of my life gives me the bends. One day I’m trying to do something about fat kids dying in America, and the next day I’m trying to do something about malnourished kids dying someplace else. What’s wrong with this picture? People in Darfur are starving to death, and we’re eating five thousand calories a day of fast food. Are we nuts?

  I told you about my work with Nourish the Children. Most of my energies for the past twenty-two years have gone to my foundation, whose mission it is to find a cure for diabetes. I started the Iacocca Foundation in 1984, after my wife Mary died from complications of type 1 diabetes. Type 1 diabetes is caused by the destruction of the pancreatic islet cells that produce insulin. It is a devastating disease, and can lead to an early death. I made it my mission to find a cure. The Iacocca Foundation is mostly dedicated to medical research. I hope this work becomes my legacy. We’re lucky to have some smart, highly motivated people running the foundation—starting with my daughter Kathi, who is the president, and Dana Ball, our executive director. My younger daughter Lia is also involved, as a foundation trustee. We’re getting close to a cure, and I still think it may happen in my lifetime. But I’m not counting my white mice before they’re hatched because medical research is a one-step-forward, two-steps-back kind of deal.

  The world of medical research has been a real education for me. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised to find that it suffers from the same kind of leadership malaise we’re seeing in the rest of society. I’m learning that research is a lot like government—kind of a self-generating bureaucracy. You do research so you can write papers to get more funding to do more research to write more papers. This was a big shock to me when I finally figured it out. I said, “Hey, isn’t anyone trying to find a cure?”

  The most innovative research is often killed during the peer review process. Why? Well, let me put it to you simply: Imagine if every time Chrysler wanted to bring a new car to market, it had to depend on positive reviews from GM and Ford. Are you
starting to get the picture?

  Let me tell you a little story. In 2001, Dr. Denise Faustman, a longtime Iacocca Foundation–supported researcher, approached our board. Dr. Faustman is an associate professor at Harvard Medical School and a researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital. I happen to think she’s brilliant and dedicated, which is a winning combination. Dr. Faustman told us that she had remarkable data from a project funded by the foundation. It was one of those thrilling “Eureka!” moments of discovery in our work. Dr. Faustman had spent eight years trying to identify the source of the autoimmune attack that causes type 1 diabetes. In the process, she identified the bad cells that are responsible for the disease. After eliminating them in mice with drug therapy, she reported for the first time that regeneration of the damaged adult stem cells was possible. Suddenly, there was light at the end of the tunnel. We believed that human trials were not that far away. In 2003, Dr. Faustman published another paper that con-firmed the regeneration project, and that’s when the gloves came off.

  Suddenly the diabetes research community was up in arms. Things got ugly. Competing organizations got the word out to donors that Dr. Faustman was a fraud. It was an undignified free-for-all. When we tried to keep discussions focused on science, people acted like angry children, name-calling, and trying to discredit both Dr. Faustman and the Iacocca Foundation. They saw regeneration as a threat, all right. A threat to the regeneration of their funding.

  It took a while, but the major research organizations eventually came around. Today, even the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation admits that regeneration is one of the most promising research directions. But the process was bloody.

  The politics of stem cell research is a costly distraction. While everyone is busy fighting about embryonic stem cells, we’re missing a big chance to make breakthroughs with adult stem cells. For the past twenty years, adult stem cells have proven their success. We use them to regenerate bone marrow, blood, and skin. Embryonic stem cells, on the other hand, have never cured a single disease or been used in a single therapy. We don’t even know if they’re capable of it. So, why don’t we go with what we know—regeneration—instead of wasting our time debating about some distant fantasy of a miracle with embryonic stem cells? Once again, I have to ask, does anyone out there really want a cure?

  Sometimes the medical research organizations get so busy raising money and running their bureaucracies that they lose sight of the mission. The National Institutes of Health, funded by our tax dollars, spend billions of dollars a year on diabetes. You try to find out where the money goes. And if you do, let me know, because I sure haven’t had any luck getting information.

  We’ve got to remember that we’re talking about real people here. Diabetes is a terrible disease that basically kills you from the inside out. Watching Mary die was a slow, agonizing process. Nothing could stop the progress of the disease, and the worst part for me was that overwhelming sense of helplessness. Mary was only fifty-seven years old when she died and she suffered terribly.

  Mary didn’t live to see her two gorgeous daughters get married. She never had a chance to know her seven grandchildren, or to see them growing into the kind of adults she would be proud of. If I can do something to keep this tragedy from happening to another family, I’m going to give it my all.

  A NEW EPIDEMIC

  What has been discouraging is that even as we’ve made progress in research on type 1 diabetes, there is a growing epidemic of obesity—especially childhood obesity—which leads to type 2 diabetes, a condition that prevents the insulin-producing cells from functioning normally. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that one out of every three American children born in 2000 will develop diabetes in their lifetime. How do you start fixing that problem?

  Well, first you have to ask why it exists in the first place. When you get to the core of the problem you find that it’s behavior-based, which is the toughest challenge of all. Most type 2 diabetes can be attributed to obesity and a sedentary lifestyle, which cause insulin resistance. More than sixty million Americans are obese, and the number is growing, right along with the waistlines.

  Some researchers are working on a magic pill so you can eat all the crap you want and not get fat. Others are talking about gastric-bypass surgery as a therapy for type 2 diabetes. In other words, we’re still looking for the instant fix. We want to stay fit and trim while stuffing ourselves in front of the TV, instead of exercising and eating right. Listening to people talk about getting their stomachs stapled as a cure for obesity is one of the most depressing things I’ve ever heard.

  The Iacocca Foundation, whose original mission has been to find a cure for type 1 diabetes (insulin-dependent), has now had to spend more money to address type 2 diabetes. It’s naïve to think there is a quick fix. We’ve got to face up to the truth: We created this problem by indulging our desire for instant gratification. Instead of using our heads and our God-given free wills and intellects, we’ve reverted to our basest natures. I call it the goldfish principle. If you’ve ever had goldfish, you know what I’m talking about. You have to regulate how much of the fish food you sprinkle in the tank every day. If you pour too much in, the goldfish will keep eating until they literally blow up. They don’t have a signal that says stop. It sounds an awful lot like twenty-first-century America.

  HOPE TAKES WORK

  I’m still learning that there is no such thing as easy when it comes to accomplishing big goals. A couple of years ago, when we realized that we’d need $11.5 million to get Dr. Faustman started on a human clinical trial, I said, “No problem. I can raise $11.5 million in a heartbeat. All I need is myself and ten other rich guys.” I plunked down my million dollars and started calling my friends. I didn’t get too far, although I am thankful for a good friend who anonymously joined me at the $1 million level and to many others who contributed. But I realized that my friends had their own causes. I had to remind myself once again that the important stuff is never easy.

  What did I do? I returned to the playbook I used to raise money for the Statue of Liberty–Ellis Island Commission. I went to the people. We started a campaign called Join Lee Now, and asked Americans for small donations. They came pouring in—the average gift is $75—and since the beginning they have contributed more than $2 million.

  Then I got really creative. I made a deal with Chrysler to film four commercials for $1.5 million, with the money going to the foundation. As part of the deal, Chrysler and its dealers agreed to donate one dollar for every car they sold between November 2005 and December 2006, and they raised $3 million.

  The commercials were part of a campaign to woo young buyers to Chrysler. The one that got the most attention paired me with the hip-hop icon Snoop Dogg. It was called “Golfing Buddies,” and they put us on a golf course in a souped-up golf cart during the shoot. It was 102 degrees that day and the shoot took almost eight hours.

  Snoop Dogg seemed like a nice kid, but I never understood a word he said.

  I got a kick out of how Chrysler used my famous pitch line from the eighties—“If you can find a better car, buy it”—and translated it into Snoop Dogg–speak: “If the ride is more fly, then you must buy.” What I’ll do for the cause!

  I still enjoy a challenge, and I always feel as if I get back more than I give. That’s what I’d like to pass on to the younger generation—the rewards of being involved. I’ve started with my own grandkids. I want them to know how lucky they are to be in a position to give back—because they have been given so much.

  I’ve been heartened lately to read that young people are getting involved in volunteering again. The “9/11 generation” experienced a jolt of reality, and their response has been to reach out. Applications for the Peace Corps are at record levels. I hope the trend continues. Who wouldn’t want to live in a country whose leaders have altruistic, charitable hearts? In the race to determine who will own the twenty-first century, I’ll place my bets on the givers, not the takers.

&n
bsp; XVIII

  Bring back brain power

  You know you’re in trouble when the President of the United States asks, “Is our children learning?” But it isn’t just the intellectually challenged who are missing the boat on education. We’ve all got to get real—and get serious—because our ability to compete and prosper as a nation depends on our children being well educated and prepared to live in this complex world.

  Year after year, the statistics show the same thing: American students struggle to hold their own, compared to students in other countries—especially in math and science. The latest international rankings in math and science just came out. Who was at the top?

  1. South Korea

  2. Japan

  3. Singapore

  Where was the United States? Number eighteen of twenty-four. That’s just plain shameful.

  A lot of you may not remember the last time we fell behind in math and science. It was 1957, and that year the Soviet Union (our archenemy in the cold war) launched Sputnik, the first man-made satellite, into space. Americans just went crazy. We couldn’t let that stand. The government began pouring money into math and science education. Twelve years later, we put the first man on the moon.

  I believe that most parents care about the quality of their kids’ schools. But too often they’re blind to what’s really going on. They don’t know how to evaluate quality. In a recent Gallup poll, 76 percent of parents said they were satisfied with their children’s schools. A lot of them pointed to the fact that their kids were getting good grades. But what they have to understand is that just because a kid is doing well against his peers in America, doesn’t mean he’s doing well. We’re not getting clobbered by Japan, South Korea, and Singapore in math and science scores because their kids are smart and disciplined and ours are stupid and lazy. They’re clobbering us because their parents and their schools demand more of them. In America our kids attend school 180 days a year. Japanese kids go to school 240 days a year. If we want our kids to catch up, you’d think we’d at least start by sending them to school for as long as the kids in Japan. The three-month summer vacation is a sacred cow. I once wrote a newspaper column calling for the extension of the school year. I got bombarded for that lousy idea—mostly from teachers. One of them even made her class write to the mean old Grinch who wanted to steal their summer vacation. Do you know how it feels to get twenty-eight pieces of mail from nine-year-olds, telling you in big block letters that you’re a dope?