Quotes


Frank Stronach and Magna International Inc., the automotive multinational he built from scratch, have been the subject of numerous articles, case studies and in-depth features over the years.The following are some selected observations and opinions published in those articles, together with a number of the signature sayings attributed to Frank Stronach on subjects ranging from business and the economy to employee motivation and success in life.

“Magna’s great strength is the entrepreneurial culture that Stronach….has created.”
BusinessWeek, “Frank Stronach’s Secret? Call It Empower Steering”, by William C. Symonds with Eric Frey, May 1, 1995


“Long before systems integration was a buzzword of the North American automobile industry, Stronach was firmly steering Magna in that direction.”
IndustryWeek, “A Giant Balancing Act”, by Susan Ladika, January                  5, 1998


“Frank Stronach saw where car manufacturing was headed and got there first.”
Canadian Business, “Car and Striver”, by David Berman,                                 September 1996


“For Frank Stronach…Magna International Corp. is more than just a company. It is the prototype for a new way of doing business.”
Automotive International, “All’s fair (and all’s well) at Magna”, by                     Bob English, December 1998


“In the 55 years since he made his fateful trip across the Atlantic, Stronach has proven himself a man never to be underestimated.”
dbusiness, “Magna Force”, by Paul Eisenstein, January-February 2011


 

The following are some of the more oft-quoted comments and sayings attributed to Frank Stronach:

 


“What makes people get up in the morning? Basically, people want to make a better life for themselves and their families.”


“Unhappiness is contagious, and when you have unhappy employees, there’s no way you can make a quality product at a competitive price.”


“You’ve got to motivate employees to not only work hard, but to also think, and they’ll only think if their heart is in the business. If you don’t win the hearts of employees, there’s no way you can be successful.”


“It’s up to management to prove to employees day in and day out that they are a fair operator.”


“No government or no union can guarantee job security. The best guarantee for job security is making a quality product at a competitive price.”


“Good businesses do not discriminate.”


“The well-being of a society depends on the strength of the economic fabric, and businesses are the weaver of that fabric.”


“Money has no heart, no soul, no conscience, no homeland. It flows through the path of least resistance.”


“When you do something well, money is a by-product.”


“I believe that individuals everywhere have two basic desires: first, they want to have personal freedom, which in essence means they want the right to choose their own road to happiness; and second, they want economic freedom, which means they want to be financially independent.”


“The reality is people are not really free unless they have economic freedom. It’s a shame that only a small percentage of people are economically free. Our challenge, therefore, is to figure out how the majority of people can attain economic freedom.”


“The human charter of rights alone is not sufficient. It has to be fortified with an economic charter of rights. Economic charters of rights will lead to economic democracies, and economic democracies are the basis for democracy itself.”


“Any society which stifles individuals in the pursuit of productivity and excellence is a decaying society.”


“The history of man has always been dominated by the golden rule: the man who has the gold makes the rules. I would never want anyone to dominate me or my children, and if I feel that strongly, then I should never expect to be able to dominate anyone else. The key is: we must dismantle the chains of domination – not via a destructive revolution, but via a revolution of the mind.”


“We don’t recognize that government is the management team of a country and the primary mandate of a politician is to be elected or re-elected. So the dilemma we in Western democracies face is that government must manage the country but its decisions are driven primarily by political reasoning. It is what I call the Achilles’ heel of democracy. ”


“Government can’t give you anything unless they take it away from you first.”


“If you run a factory, it doesn’t matter how productive the people on the factory floor are if there is too much administration up top. The business will simply not be competitive. The same holds true for a country.”


“Life is a question of fate and circumstances. If you are in the right place at the right time with the right ingredients, then many things can happen.”


“Success in life can only be measured by the degree of happiness you reach. But let me tell you from my experience, it’s a lot easier to be happy if you have some money.”


“If things don’t function properly, might it be in your personal life, in your business, or in your country, you should know that you’ve got a problem. If you don’t know that you’ve got a problem, then you’ve really got a problem. And problems are like cancer: if left unattended, they will grow.”


“The world is full of critics, but there are very few people who can offer solutions.”