Quotes About Decision-making

The only principle I can see in this life, is that one must forfeit the less for the greater.

The Art of War did not provide a single route to victory and recognized that while battles were best avoided they sometimes had to be fought.

Tal y como lo planteó Downs, el hombre racional «persigue sus objetivos de un modo tal que, en la medida de sus posibilidades, utilizará la mínima cantidad de recursos escasos por unidad de resultados obtenidos». Esto también exigía centrarse en un aspecto concreto de un individuo y no en «toda su personalidad».

Cuando se podía establecer una conexión inmediata entre el jefe del Estado y el sargento más novato de la línea del frente, las decisiones meditadas de toda la cadena de mando podían evaporarse por unas cuantas frases imprudentes y torpes.

La estrategia decide dónde actuar; la logística traslada las tropas hasta ese punto; la táctica general dedide el modo de ejecutar la acción y el uso de las tropas».[7]

David Barry and Michael Elmes consider strategy, "one of the most prominent, influential and costly stories told in organizations.

Tolstoy's belief that true understanding only existed in the present and events were decided "on the instant." This is why Kutuzov's best advice before the battle was to get a good night's sleep: immediate attentiveness to unfolding possibilities was going to be more valuable than forward planning.11

Early in my career I had learned the wisdom of not gripping over the hand I was dealt. I had a mentor who taught me lessons about business and life that served me for years. He looked at business the way a grand master might look at a chessboard. There's nothing you can do about where the pieces are. It's only your next move that matters.

Harper] once told a friend, "I think about strategy twenty-four hours a day," and it was only a small exaggeration.

After I squirmed into the snakepit of national politics, I realized that a ruler must equate the unpredictable with the unreliable. The future was too important to leave to whim.

If you're in a hole, don't dig, they say.

That our intuition could lead us astray is troubling in direct proportion to the degree of trust we place in it. The solution would seem to be: Don't be overly trusting. Mix in a healthy dose of skepticism. But suppose we don't have a say in the matter? Suppose we're hardwired to trust—to believe in—our instincts, regardless of whether they're right? Suddenly the problem of not knowing becomes a lot more complicated.

In some ways I think every wrong turn I was to make . . . could be traced to moments of inaction, moments when I noticed things unfolding wrongly and failed to query or object.

Life is made up of a series of judgments on insufficient data, and if we waited to run down all our doubts, it would flow past us.

Voters—here's the real challenge: we don't need empty promises made by politicians whose only goal in life is to get elected or re-elected. We need leaders with attributes that qualify them to lead us through the difficult challenges we're facing.

I am learning how to let my yes be yes and my no mean no without the need to justify why I choose to say either.

There are times when even the best manager is like the little boy with the big dog, waiting to see where the dog wants to go so he can take him there.

I ignore polling as a method of government. I think that shows a certain weakness of mind - an inability to chart a course whichever way the wind blows, whichever way the media encourages the people to go, you follow. If you can't force or are unwilling to force your people to follow you, with or without threats, you are not a leader.

A great doctor kills more people than a great general.

It's learning how to negotiate to keep both sides happy - whether it's for a multi-million dollar contract or just which show to watch on TV, that determines the quality and enjoyment of our lives.

If she hadn't queued for the forms, he wouldn't have. That was their pattern, what came naturally to them both – she did the legwork and the research so that they could brainstorm and fumble towards a decision in which he would have the final word.

It is easy to decide on what is wrong to wear to a party, such as deep-sea diving equipment or a pair of large pillows, but deciding what is right is much trickier.

If you try to avoid every instance of peer pressure you will end up without any peers whatsoever, and the trick is to succumb to enough pressure that you do not drive your peers away, but not so much that you end up in a situation in which you are dead or otherwise uncomfortable. This is a difficult trick, and most people never master it, and end up dead or uncomfortable at least once during their lives.

Was it really necessary? Was it absolutely necessary to steal that sugar bowl from Esme Squalor?