Best 875 quotes in «strategy quotes» category

It takes a few key building blocks including leadership, strategy, structure, and capability to shape a customer-centric digital business.

It was badly received by the generation to which it was first addressed, and the outpouring of angry nonsense to which it gave rise is sad to think upon. But the present generation will probably behave just as badly if another Darwin should arise, and inflict upon them that which the generality of mankind most hate—the necessity of revising their convictions. Let them, then, be charitable to us ancients; and if they behave no better than the men of my day to some new benefactor, let them recollect that, after all, our wrath did not come to much, and vented itself chiefly in the bad language of sanctimonious scolds. Let them as speedily perform a strategic right-about-face, and follow the truth wherever it leads.

It was rather difficult to throw a game when you had no idea what you were doing to win it in the first place.

I’ve learned that the long-game is the shortcut.

I was not so insane as to attempt to bend events to conform to my policies. On the contrary, I bent my policies to accord with the unforeseen shape of the events.

Management Control Systems are designs/implementations of a management paradigm with respect to a strategy.

Look at every ‘revolutionary’ brand or category killer, it had an app, or a feature, or a functionality, or a user experience nobody else at that point could offer. I refer to this as ‘the Killer App’ principle.

Look beyond what you can see, Think Potential

luck, of course, will always play a role, as it does with all strategies

Make sure a conflict exists before working to resolve it.

Managerial abilities, bureaucratic skills, technical expertise, and political talent are all necessary, but they can be applied only to goals that have already been defined by military policies, broad and narrow. And those policies can be only as good as strategy, operational art of war, tactical thought, and plain military craft that have gone into their making. At present, the defects of structure submerge or distort strategy and operational art, they out rightly suppress tactical ingenuity, and they displace the traditional insights and rules of military craft in favor of bureaucratic preferences, administrative convenience, and abstract notions of efficiency derived from the world of business management. First there is the defective structure for making of military decisions under the futile supervision of the civilian Defense Department; then come the deeply flawed defense policies and military choices, replete with unnecessary costs and hidden risks; finally there come the undoubted managerial abilities, bureaucratic skills, technical expertise, and political talents, all applied to achieve those flawed policies and to implement those flawed choices. By this same sequence was the fatally incomplete Maginot Line built, as were all the Maginot Lines of history, each made no better by good government, technical talent, careful accounting, or sheer hard work. Hence the futility of all the managerial innovations tried in the Pentagon over the years. In the purchasing of weapons, for example, “total package” procurement, cost plus incentive contracting, “firm fixed price” purchasing have all been introduced with much fanfare, only to be abandoned, retried, and repudiated once again. And each time a new Secretary of Defense arrives, with him come the latest batch of managerial innovations, many of them aimed at reducing fraud, waste, and mismanagement-the classic trio endlessly denounced in Congress, even though they account for mere percentage points in the total budget, and have no relevance at all to the failures of combat. The persistence of the Administrator’s Delusion has long kept the Pentagon on a treadmill of futile procedural “reforms” that have no impact at all on the military substance of our defense. It is through strategy, operational art, tactical ingenuity, and military craft that the large savings can be made, and the nation’s military strength greatly increased, but achieving long-overdue structural innovations, from the central headquarters to the combat forces, from the overhead of bases and installations to the current purchase of new weapons. Then, and only then, will it be useful to pursue fraud, waste, and mismanagement, if only to save a few dollars more after the billions have already been saved. At present, by contrast, the Defense Department administers ineffectively, while the public, Congress, and the media apply their energies to such petty matters as overpriced spare parts for a given device in a given weapon of a given ship, overlooking at the same time the multibillion dollar question of money spent for the Navy as a whole instead of the Army – whose weakness diminishes our diplomatic weight in peacetime, and which could one day cause us to resort to nuclear weapons in the face of imminent debacle. If we had a central military authority and a Defense Department capable of strategy, we should cheerfully tolerate much fraud, waste, and mismanagement; but so long as there are competing military bureaucracies organically incapable of strategic combat, neither safety nor economy will be ensured, even if we could totally eliminate every last cent of fraud, waste, and mismanagement.

Many ideas fail to see the light of day and are buried in the same fertile mind they once originated in because of a single reason. People fail to take the first step and the next steps never happen.

Make the strategy a living thing, which can breathe life into people and the culture.

Many of the cataclysmic leadership failures were failures of rationality. The pendulum of leadership development needs to swing back toward the rational: strategy, creativity, foresight, decision-making, and analytics.

Maxim 28: If the price of collateral damage is high enough, you might be able to get paid for bringing ammunition home with you. -The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries

Minimal damage, but huge impact,” Mom said. “Something that some empire builders, or Emperors, fail to think about when they charged and conquered their neighbors. Not only were warfare expensive and costly, but the damage to the land and massive deaths were something the winning side of the war would inherit as well.” - Amazon Lee Adventures in China by Kira G. and Kailin Gow

Men like you and I make myths, we weave stories to sanctify the life that has been given to us. But not Govinda. Men like him don’t make myths; they make destiny. – Kshatta Vidur

Most businesses would profit greatly from just applying Change Management 101 well.

Most companies that win don't have a unique strategy; quite the opposite, they are doing what everyone else is doing but have figured out how to execute better.

Motivation overcomes self-limitations.

Most of us fear change. Even when our minds say change is normal, our stomachs quiver at the prospect. But for strategists and managers today, there is no choice but to change.

Moves and countermoves are not quite strategic

Needless documentation hampers performance.

mystify, mislead, and surprise the enemy

No one person is the cause for or consequence of all that happens. I am just the tenth man, the threshold, the turn in the tide. I stand here on the shoulders of humanity, a mere instrument of Time. – Govinda Shauri

Never venture, never win!

Noble though it may be, our way of life is nothing but servitude. It does not take long for servitude to turn to subjugation. – Shikandin Draupada

No,” Gideon says. “No guns. The most dangerous weapon you have is your brain. Give someone a gun and they tend to quit using it.

Note: orc buoyancy is limited. Avoid fighting the damnable rebels near shoddily-built dams in the future.” – Extract from the journal of Dread Emperor Malignant II

One cannot be successful as an architect without thinking of not only what to do, but how to get it done within an organization, which requires knowing why it should matter to someone who isn’t a technologist.

Of the top 10 sources of innovation, employees are the only resource that you can control and access that your competitors cannot. Employees are the one asset you have that can actually be a sustainable competitive advantage.

O maior remédio utilizado contra os desígnios do inimigo é fazeres voluntariamente aquilo que ele planeja que tu faças à força, porque fazendo-o de forma voluntária, tu o fazes com ordem e para vantagem tua e desvantagem dele; se o fizesses à força, seria então a tua ruína.

One can always sell something by offering the lowest price. But this does not create loyalty to your brand. Never did and never will. It only creates “loyalty” to that price point. As soon as your guest or visitor is offered a better price, he or she will jump ship, leaving you like a scorned lover in the middle of the night.

Nuclear deterrence will remain a vital aspect of security. or Nuclear deterrence will have a smaller role in future security. Sources are split in their assessment of the importance of nuclear weapons and the validity of traditional nuclear deterrence in the 2001 - 2015 period. On the one hand are those who see nuclear weapons as decreasingly effective tools in deterring war. On the other are those experts who concede that nuclear weapons may have a different role than at the height of the Cold War, but who argue that they remain the ultimate deterrent, with considerable effect on the actions of even rogue states. Many experts who state a moral opposition to nuclear weapons have translated this into forecasts of a globalized world in which nuclear deterrence no longer makes sense. With greater economic interdependence, this argument runs, even the so-called "rogue states" will be reconciled to the international order, renouncing or reducing their overt or covert nuclear arsenals.

Once you begin to conquer your fear of failure, things that once registered as risks don't anymore.

Only Vastness of Character defines us....

Only time can reveal the future.

Our relations seemed poor to me, and I wasn't surprised that the US intelligence picture in the Horn of Africa was weak. Much of what I read consisted of recycled news headlines repackaged as intelligence. Real, valuable intelligence only came from real people, yet we hadn't done much to meet and work with the people.

OUR ACTIONS RIGHT NOW WILL DEFINE THE CONTENT OF OUR PAST.

Our doctrine is one of cost-efficiency. Any officer who believes extermination of the enemy is a valid path to victory should immediately be demoted back to the ranks.” –Marshal Ranker

Our research reveals that most companies’ strategic planning process keeps them wedded to red oceans. The process tends to drive companies to compete within existing market space.

People who have nothing much in mind for next week speak instead about the next century or millennium.

Over time, repetition brings perfection, which brings success.

Patience and Forgiveness are at the heart of A warrior's success, they help engender necessary intervals of space and time to evaluate difficult encounters.

Peace is one thing, revolution is another. You were either impatient or highly optimistic to think one would lead to the other. – Panchali Draupadi.

People will copy what you do and how you do it, but they can never copy WHY you are.

Perhaps the Allies will engage in some trickery. A diversionary landing, perhaps as you yourself have suggested, my Fuhrer. But the real strike will come here. At Calais.

Perfect logic applied to insufficient information in limited time almost always results in a flawed decision

Perseverance guarantees success.

Politics was at once clinical and human, driven by principles and passions that he (the leader) had to master and harness for the good of the whole.