Leadership & Business Wisdom

HOW TO USE OBJECTIVES Objectives are not fate; they are not direction. If objective are only good intentions, they are worthless. They must degenerate into work. And work is always specific, always has – or should have – clear, unambiguous, …

LONG-RANGE PLANNING The future will not just happen if one wishes hard enough. The future requires decisions – now. It imposes risk – now. It requires action – now. It demands allocation of resources, and above all, of human resources …

Divestment In looking for a husband for your daughter, says an old proverb, don’t ask: “Who’ll make the best husband for her?” Ask instead: “For which kind of a man would she make a good wife?” Divestment is a “marketing” …

The Failed Strategy Most of the people who persist in the wilderness leave nothing behind but bleached hones. When a strategy or an action doesn’t seem to be working, the rule is, “If at first you don’t succeed, try once …

Gathering and Using Intelligence Information has to be organized to test a company’s assumptions about its theory of its business. Information has to be organized to challenge a company’s strategy. It has to test the company’s assumptions about its theory …

The Future Budget The budget for the future remains stable throughout good times and bad. In most enterprises—and again not just in business —there is only one budget, and it is adjusted to the business cycle. In good times expenditures …

Organize Dissent The effective decision-maker organizes dissent. Decisions of the kind the executive has to make are not made well by acclamation. They are made well only if based on the clash of conflicting views, the dialogue between different points …

The Right Compromise “Half a loaf is better than no bread.” One has to start out with what is right rather than what is acceptable (let alone who is right) precisely because one always has to compromise in the end. …

Harmonize the Immediate Long-range Future A manager must, so to speak, keep his nose to the grindstone while lifting his eyes to the hills-quite an acrobat feat. A manager has two specific tasks. The first is creation of a true …

PURSUING PERFECTION “THE GODS CAN SEE THEM.” The greatest sculptor of ancient Greece, Phidias, around 440 bc made the statues that to this day, 2,400 years later, still stand on the roof of the Parthenon in Athens. When Phidias submitted …