Quotes About Strategy

systematic tools for getting results, whether in business or international diplomacy, summed up in Beyond Machiavelli and Getting It DONE;

Having a good BATNA can help you negotiate on the merits. You can convert such resources as you have into effective negotiating power by developing and improving your BATNA. Apply knowledge, time, money, people, connections, and wits into devising the best solution for you independent of the other side's assent. The more easily and happily you can walk away from a negotiation, the greater your capacity to affect its outcome.

Sidestep their attack and deflect it against the problem.

Break the vicious cycle by refusing to react. Instead of pushing back, sidestep their attack and deflect it against the problem. As in the Oriental martial arts of judo and jujitsu, avoid pitting your strength against theirs directly; instead, use your skill to step aside and turn their strength to your ends. Rather than resisting their force, channel it into exploring interests, inventing options for mutual gain, and searching for independent standards.

It is dangerous to spring to obvious conclusions about baseball or, for that matter, ball players. Baseball is not an obvious game.

The real culprit in 1994 was leverage. If you aren't in debt, you can't go broke and can't be made to sell, in which case "liquidity" is irrelevant. But a leveraged firm may be forced to sell, lest fast-accumulating losses put it out of business. Leverage always gives rise to this same brutal dynamic, and its dangers cannot be stressed

Hewlett-Packard is somewhat riskier than GE; Amazon.com, riskier still.

If you aren't in debt, you can't go broke and can't be made to sell, in which case "liquidity" is irrelevant. But a leveraged firm may be forced to sell, lest fast-accumulating losses put it out of business. Leverage always gives rise to this same brutal dynamic, and its dangers cannot be stressed too often.

I shall give a propagandist reason for starting the war, no matter whether it is plausible or not. The victor will not be asked afterwards whether he told the truth.

What should I do?' Coyote yelled. 'Cultivate philosophy and run like hell,' said Bear...

You imported a master strategist, you'd better listen to what he has to say.

I would have taken genuine delight in looking helpless while actually pulling the strings that made all the others dance. Any of us would, though. We all have our motives, our ambitions.

My foolproof plan might not be proof against this-meaning I was the fool.

All scheming princes must keep a few secrets.

After presenting his completed sequences, he analysed the errors the others had made. You should never have thrown away the knave of hearts, he told Dina. That's why you lost. I took a chance.

In the snows Amundsen grasped that it was usually best to lead from behind. He could see his men and survey the situation, the foundation of command. And the last man has the responsibility of retrieving what falls off the sledges. However careful the stowing, somehow something vital usually drops by the wayside.

Daring in design, cautious in execution—it was a formula he made his own throughout his career.

After the French and Indian War, the British vacillated about whether to swap all of Canada for the island of Guadeloupe; in the event the French toasted their own diplomatic cunning in retaining the sugar island.

John Adams summed up the case succinctly: "In general, our generals have been outgeneralled.

Grant explained to Porter his aversion to profanities, saying "swearing helps to rouse a man's anger; and when a man flies into a passion his adversary who keeps cool always gets the better of him."50

Taking for granted the growth of his empire, he hired talented people as found, not as needed.

Things seldom happened accidentally to George Washington, but he managed them with such consummate skill that they often seemed to happen accidentally. By 1775 he had a fine sense of power—how to gain it, how to keep it, how to wield it.

To maximize its leverage over Wall Street, it scattered its gigantic balances among many banks;

Benson's solution suited Rockefeller just fine: Tidewater, instead of cutting rates to compete with the railroads, would collude with them to raise rates.