Quotes from David Cote

While reading a book about the construction of the Panama Canal, I came across an anecdote about the project's chief engineer, whose math teacher used to say, "If you have five minutes to solve a problem, use the first three to figure out how you're going to do it.

Not only did I spend time in advance of meetings generating some key questions for teams

Simplicity and concision are tough. The French philosopher Blaise Pascal famously noted that he'd written a long letter, having lacked the time required to write a shorter one.2 As I believe, if you can't convey a thought clearly and in a few words, then your comprehension of it is probably lacking.

Delegation and trust are of course vital—you can't do everything yourself, and you shouldn't try. That said, you don't want delegation to verge into a total abdication of authority on your part. You must verify that employees and the organization are actually executing as they are supposed to.