Quotes About Strategy

The single most damaging misconception about strategy is that it is a set of financial performance goals. The so-called "strategies" created by many managements are nothing more than three-to-five year financial performance forecasts. They are then labeled "strategy" and shipped off to the board of directors which goes through the motions of discussing how big the numbers are. Strategy is not your aspirations. Strategy is concerned with how you will arrange your actions and resources to punch through the challenges you face.

The Berlin Defence suited my strategy for the match. I had a defensive strategy - Actually, I had in my pocket some other sharper stuff to fall back on - but first I wanted to try the defensive strategy with Black and it worked so well.

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.

Current levels of Pentagon spending may not be able to support current defense strategy. The answer to this problem is right before our eyes: cut the money and change the strategy. That would be acting in the name of a conception of national security that was truly strategic.

Chess strategy as such today is still in its diapers, despite Tarrasch's statement 'We live today in a beautiful time of progress in all fields'. Not even the slightest attempt has been made to explore and formulate the laws of chess strategy.

Imagine you have six loans, small to huge. People want to close loans and because of that, they try to pay off the small loans, but that's not the right strategy. The right strategy, of course, is to pay the loan with the highest interest rate. People make this mistake and it costs them lots and lots of money, it's a very expensive mistake because interest rates accumulate and become very, very expensive very quickly.

Often GOP political strategy seems like the human wave theory of the Chinese military translated to politics. Where Beijing uses masses of soldiers to overwhelm their adversaries, the GOP uses huge campaign budgets as a substitute for strategy, thought or issues.

Without a correct strategy the victory is impossible. But even the most correct strategy cannot give the victory under unfavorable objective conditions.

Above all, success in business requires two things: a winning competitive strategy, and superb organizational execution. Distrust is the enemy of both. I submit that while high trust won't necessarily rescue a poor strategy, low trust will almost always derail a good one.

This unique strategy that the advanced primates created, the strategy of using language to bind time, is what the process we call 'civilization' has been all about.

Always start at the end before you begin. Professional investors always have an exit strategy before they invest. Knowing your exit strategy is an important investment fundamental.

[Barack Obama] is sending more troops [to Afghanistan], but they have also realized that we are not going to win that war through guns and tanks. We have to engage the neighbors, and it is good that there is a non-military strategy in addition to a military strategy. It is, at least, encouraging. Whether it will work or not, the jury is still put.

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.

Ultimately, what separates a winner from a loser at the grandmaster level is the willingness to do the unthinkable. A brilliant strategy is, certainly, a matter of intelligence, but intelligence without audaciousness is not enough. Given the opportunity, I must have the guts to explode the game, to upend my opponent's thinking and, in so doing, unnerve him. So it is in business: One does not succeed by sticking to convention. When your opponent can easily anticipate every move you make, your strategy deteriorates and becomes commoditized.

If you get the U.N. to say we're going to solve the Syrian problem, if you get the Russians involved in a productive posture, you are making progress, but the Republican core says no strategy or failed strategy.

Any approach to strategy quickly encounters a conflict between corporate objectives and corporate capabilities. Attempting the impossible is not good strategy. It is just a waste of resources.

Strategy was first used in Athens (508 BC) to describe the art of leadership used by the ten generals on the war council. Some argue for the more creative, human side, while others argue for the more analytic side of strategy.

President Bush announced he has a five-point strategy for getting out of Iraq. Points six through 10 will be handled by the Kerry administration.

If GE's strategy of investment in China is wrong, it represents a loss of a billion dollars, perhaps a couple of billion dollars. If it is right, it is the future of this company for the next century.

I think it's overly simplistic to say that any one single strategy is going to really change the focus and change the trajectory of drug use.

I've helped some of my classmates on how to strategize to get to the next level of their businesses. And it's interesting, because here I am sitting there from the entertainment industry and the fashion industry, and I'm giving a billionaire that has a business that's been in his family for 300 years - I'm giving him advice about strategy!

Without a goal [maneuvering is] aimless. You might be a master tactician, but you'll have no sense of strategy.

A new study suggests that middle-aged adults who go on periodic drinking binges may face a heightened risk of dementia later on in life. The study is entitled, 'National Strategy for Victory in Iraq.'

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.

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.

We must ever keep in mind that collectivized socialism is part of the communist strategy. Communism is fundamentally socialism. We will never win our fight against communism by making concessions to socialism.

The customer demands simplicity, that organizations organize around them. Easy to use is a customer tsunami ripping across the world. Ease of use and simplicity must now be at the heart of organizational strategy.

Writing is a process of discovering. I could never outline a narrative; that just sounds boring. There's no joy of discovery in what you're doing if that's your strategy.

I am committed to doing customer service for Craigslist for the rest of my life. The exit strategy is death.

The big picture is: the main thing you should be concerned about in the future are incremental returns on capital going forward. As it turns out, past history of a good return on capital is a good proxy for this but obviously not foolproof. I think this is an area where thoughtful analysis can add value to any simple ranking/screening strategy such as the magic formula. When doing in depth analysis of companies, I care very much about long term earnings power, not necessarily so much about the volatility of that earnings power but about my certainty of "normal" earnings power over time.

But sovereign debt is a wider question not only in Europe but across the globe. While every country is a unique case, I think it's not an issue of countries acting on their own. We need a more coordinated strategy not only in Europe but around the world.

Profit maximization is the murderous strategy of global corporation hierarchies

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.

It is what makes the reform process an art, not just a science. You have to develop a strategy that tells you what reform measures you should follow and in what sequence.

In real life, strategy is actually very straightforward. You pick a general direction and implement like hell.

For if we merely take what obviously appears the line of least resistance, its obviousness will appeal to the opponent also; and this line may no longer be that of least resistance. In studying the physical aspect, we must never lose sight of the psychological, and only when both are combined is the strategy truly an indirect approach, calculated to dislocate the opponent's balance.

It's a very erroneous strategy to try to push the Russian opposition to unite. First of all, the opposition is addressing different parts of Russian society that have differing points of view. And besides, a united opposition is a nice big target that the authorities have a much easier time fighting. And besides, resisting an authoritarian regime with an authoritarian opposition merely means that, in the event of victory, you're just doing yet another round of the same old, same old.

If the opponent offers keen play I don't object; but in such cases I get less satisfaction, even if I win, than from a game conducted according to all the rules of strategy with its ruthless logic.

When I'm marketing a film, whether its mine or someone else's, I work with a great deal of strategy and elbow grease until the job is done.

The body does not want you to do this. As you run, it tells you to stop but the mind must be strong. You always go too far for your body. You must handle the pain with strategy...It is not age; it is not diet. It is the will to succeed.

Tyre management has always been part of the qualifying strategy and the race itself. I dont know about others; I just know that I always push as much as I can to obtain the best result possible.

A man is just a woman's strategy for making other women.

Mating Strategy is influenced by the cardinal fact that women have more at stake in sexual activity than men, because of the limited age span in which they can reproduce and the heavy investment required of them with each child conceived. In courtship women consistently emphasize commitment of resources and material security.

Every great man exhibits the talent of organization or construction, whether it be in a poem, a philosophical system, a policy, or a strategy. And without method there is no organization nor construction.

Don't start a company unless it's an obsession and something you love. If you have an exit strategy, it's not an obsession.

For me the starting point for everything - before strategy, tactics, theories, managing, organizing, philosophy, methodology, talent, or experience - is work ethic. Without one of significant magnitude, you're dead in the water.

Cutting prices or putting things on sale is not sustainable business strategy. The other side of it is that you can't cut enough costs to save your way to prosperity.

The warrior is different in that studying the Way of strategy is based on overcoming men