Quotes About Strategy

As I worked to explain how to avoid bad strategy, I began to see that one cannot really evaluate or criticize a strategy unless there is a fairly clear statement of the problem the strategy is trying to solve.

The United States, as the world knows, will never start a war. We do not want a war. We do not now expect a war. This generation of Americans has already had enough - more than enough - of war and hate and oppression. We shall be prepared if others wish it. We shall be alert to try to stop it. But we shall also do our part to build a world of peace where the weak are safe and the strong are just. We are not helpless before that task or hopeless of its success. Confident and unafraid, we labor on - not toward a strategy of annihilation but toward a strategy of peace.

Not changing your strategy merely because you're used to the one you have now is a lousy strategy.

The most effective strategy for successful living is really no strategy at all. It is, rather, to be real, to be honest, to be authentic, to be you.

An effective strategy almost always involves both doing something and not doing something, and knowing when to choose the right alternative. To succeed, the strategy that is chosen ultimately depends on the acquisition of as much information as possible.

The opportunities and threats existing in any situation always exceed the resources needed to exploit the opportunities or avoid the threats. Thus, strategy is essentially a problem of allocating resources. If strategy is to be successful, it must allocate superior resources against a decisive opportunity.

The church doesn’t have a social strategy, the church is a social strategy.

With only 2 percent of the world's oil reserves, oil isn't enough. This country needs an all-out, all-of-the-above strategy that develops every available source of American energy. A strategy that's cleaner, cheaper, and full of new jobs.

Preemption is the right of any nation in order to preserve its National Security; however, preemptive war is a tactic, not a strategy. When used as a strategy preemption dilutes diplomacy, creates an atmosphere of distrust, and promotes regional instability.

What is American strategy first of all? So American strategy is to command the seas, right? The foundation of our power is sea control. Nobody can invade us, but we can invade them.

Logistics comprises the means and arrangements which work out the plans of strategy and tactics. Strategy decides where to act; logistics brings the troops to this point.

When Jesus warns us not to store up treasures on earth, it's not just because wealth might be lost; it's because wealth will always be lost. Either it leaves us while we live, or we leave it when we die. No exceptions....Realizing its value is temporary should radically affect our investment strategy.... According to Jesus, storing up earthly treasures isn't simply wrong. It's just plain stupid.

I do not believe that a counterterrorism strategy all by itself, without a sufficient level of counterinsurgency, will work.

A great strategy meeting is a meeting of minds.

He remembers the five rules of combat set down by Chuan Tzu - faith, companions, time, space and strategy.

But the central point is that any campaign against Iraq, whatever the strategy, cost and risks, is certain to divert us for some indefinite period from our war on terrorism.

Ask yourself how many shots you would have saved if you always developed a strategy before you hit, always played within your capabilities, never lost you temper, and never got down on yourself.

The essence of strategy is choosing what not to do.

If P=NP, then the world would be a profoundly different place than we usually assume it to be. There would be no special value in “creative leaps,” no fundamental gap between solving a problem and recognizing the solution once it's found. Everyone who could appreciate a symphony would be Mozart; everyone who could follow a step-by-step argument would be Gauss; everyone who could recognize a good investment strategy would be Warren Buffett.

Kim Jong-Un is a dangerous leader, without a doubt. And both Republican and Democrat administrations have been completely ineffective in dealing with him. So we must continue to isolate him. We will need China as part of that strategy.

If [Pope's Francis] media-generated popularity, fragile as that may turn out to be when the world discovers that the pope is really a Catholic, opens windows of possibility for explaining that divine mercy leads us to the truths God revealed to us (and inscribed into the world and into us), then his reanimation of the papacy will advance the "Church in permanent mission" for which he called in Evangelii Gaudium, which is the grand strategy document of his pontificate.

We're doing some very exciting, bold things, pioneering content on mobile and for broadband, ... My vision is to say, as we take the strategy forward, we are doing it to deliver public remit. We're thinking less and less about C4 and more about the brand family.

Apparently, the fossil-fuel industry's strategy is to convince the American people that we should just burn all the way through the last of our oil and coal reserves.

Cooperation for mutual benefit, a survival strategy very common in natural systems, is one that humanity needs to emulate.

In short, killing the goose that lays the golden egg is a viable political strategy, so long as the goose does not die before the next election and no one traces the politicians’ fingerprints on the murder weapon.

Democrats are just as divided as Republicans these days. Embarrassed by their election losses, they are fighting over everything from their diagnosis of why Trump beat them in 2016 to how much to stake themselves on an oust-him-at-all-costs strategy now. Their internal battles may not be as sexy as the unprecedented hostile takeover of the GOP by an outsider president not beholden to it - yet they are just as consequential.

My biggest fear is that we [Unilever company] at one point in time will not be able to attract the best and brightest [workers]. I don't worry so much about the business, the strategy. If we can continue to attract the best, I know they will ultimately figure out how to run the company in a very tough environment.

Hope without a strategy doesn’t generate leadership. Leadership comes when your hope and your optimism are matched with a concrete vision of the future and a way to get there. People won’t follow you if they don’t believe you can get to where you say you’re going.

The gym and the treadmill is a good idea. But the problem is we spend so much effort in marketing messaging, deluding people into thinking if you get on your treadmill or you go to the gym, that's what you need. People who join a gym, the vast majority of them have quit within nine months and almost all of them have quit within two years. So if it's a longevity strategy, does not work.

We don't have a traditional strategy process, planning process like you'd find in traditional technical companies. It allows Google to innovate very, very quickly, which I think is a real strength of the company.

Obstacles, of course, are developmentally necessary: they teach kids strategy, patience, critical thinking, resilience and resourcefulness.

Strategy is about shaping the future.

In developing our industrial strategy for the period ahead, we have the benefit of much experience. Almost everything has been tried at least once

When it comes to strategy, ponder less and do more.

You want to know the biggest illusion about success? That it's like a pinnacle to be climbed, a thing to be possessed, or a static result to be achieved. If you want to succeed, if you want to achieve all your outcomes, you have to think of success as a process, a way of life, a habit of mind, a strategy for life.

I don't believe that military intervention is always the right approach. What we need is a comprehensive strategy, one that advances democratization, economic reforms and equal rights for women.

I've worked with 10 presidents. It's a record. I worked with Republicans and Democrats. All of them when it came to Israel were, movingly, friendly. From Truman, who was the first to recognize Israel 11 minutes after the U.N. resolution, to Obama. When it comes to the major issues of security and strategy, we are together, completely.

Guilt is imposed by others on you. It is a strategy of the priests to exploit. It is a conspiracy between the priest and the politician to keep humanity in deep slavery forever. They create guilt in you, they create great fear of sin. They condemn you, they make you afraid, they poison your very roots with the idea of guilt. They destroy all possibilities of laughter, joy, celebration. Their condemnation is such that to laugh seems to be a sin, to be joyous means you are worldly.

What makes a good client, to me, is one that signed on for the strategy as well as the execution, not just the end product.

The way an aircraft flies - that is the way the strategy works. Most of the time the plane is on autopilot, and does a great job of flying itself. Every once in a while it is necessary for the pilot to jump in.

There is nothing antithetical in American history, culture, or traditions to teamwork. Teams were important in America's history - wagon trains conquered the West, men working together on the assembly line in American industry conquered the world, a successful national strategy and a lot of teamwork put an American on the moon first (and thus fare, last). But American mythology extols only the individual...In America, halls of fame exist for almost every conceivable activity, but nowhere do Americans raise monuments in praise of teamwork.

My hope was that by saying clearly to Saddam Hussein, "we're going to enforce UN Resolutions," that he would make the decision to leave peaceably and at least allow for inspectors to come into his country, and if he chose not to, there would be a military option. I want people to understand that the military was my last option. I had a strategy and hopefully solving the problem peacefully - and it wasn't just me, it was a coalition of nations that were involved.

Let us not compare Edward Snowden's situation with that of Chelsea Manning or Jeremy Hammond, who is also imprisoned in the United States. As a result of WikiLeaks' hard work, Edward Snowden has political asylum, has travel documents, lives with his girlfriend, goes to the ballet and earns substantial speaking fees. Edward Snowden is essentially free and happy. That is no coincidence. It was my strategy to undo the chilling effect of the 35 year Manning sentence and it has worked.

People say that ideas aren't important in business. Okay, people say, maybe an idea for a new product, but the rest is all execution, making it happen. Not so. As the strategy revolution demonstrated, ideas can be the key tools for making your business competitive.

All opening moves were the same, like in chess. You don't have to come up with anything new, there's no point, because you're both after the same thing anyway. The game soon finds its own way and it's only at that point that you need a strategy.

Investing in early childhood nutrition is a surefire strategy. The returns are incredibly high.

None of this means, however, that a business or stock is an intelligent purchase simply because it is unpopular; a contrarian approach is just as foolish as a follow-the-crowd strategy. What's required is thinking rather than polling. Unfortunately, Bertrand Russell's observation about life in general applies with unusual force in the financial world: "Most men would rather die than think. Many do."

The official strategy is defensive pessimism, always.