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Think ahead. Don’t let day-to-day operations drive out planning.

Donald Rumsfeld

Presidential leadership needn’t always cost money. Look for low- and no-cost options. They can be surprisingly effective.
DONALD RUMSFELD

Leadership Money Option President
Learn to say ‘I don’t know.’ If used when appropriate, it will be often.
DONALD RUMSFELD

Appropriate Learn Often
Every day is filled with numerous opportunities for serious error. Enjoy it.
DONALD RUMSFELD

Enjoyment Error Opportunity Serious
Everyone’s saying you can’t do anything until you can do everything.
DONALD RUMSFELD

Motivational Work Hard
Reduce the number of lawyers. They are like beavers – they get in the middle of the stream and dam it up.
DONALD RUMSFELD

Lawyer Reduce Stream
If in doubt, move decisions up to the President.
DONALD RUMSFELD

Decision Doubt President
Reduce the layers of management. They put distance between the top of an organization and the customers.
DONALD RUMSFELD

Customer Distance Management Organization
If you try to please everybody, somebody’s not going to like it.
DONALD RUMSFELD

Please Try
Agreement can always be reached by increasing the generality of the conclusion; when this is done, the form is generally preserved but only the illusion of policy is created.
DONALD RUMSFELD

Agreement Conclusion Creation Illusion Increase Policy
Know that the amount of criticism you receive may correlate somewhat to the amount of publicity you receive.
DONALD RUMSFELD

Criticism Publicity Receive
Many people around the President have sizeable egos before entering government, some with good reason. Their new positions will do little to moderate their egos.
DONALD RUMSFELD

Ego Government Moderate People President
Test ideas in the marketplace. You learn from hearing a range of perspectives. Consultation helps engender the support decisions need to be successfully implemented.
DONALD RUMSFELD

Consult Decision Ideas Market Perspective Test
With the press there is no ‘off the record.’
DONALD RUMSFELD

Media Record
There are known knowns, things we know that we know; and there are known unknowns, things that we know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns, things we do not know we don’t know.
DONALD RUMSFELD

Imagination Knowledge
There are a lot of people who lie and get away with it, and that’s just a fact.
DONALD RUMSFELD

Fact Lie People
Death has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war.
DONALD RUMSFELD

Death Encouragement Tendency War

Think ahead. Don’t let day-to-day operations drive out planning.

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Think ahead. Don’t let day-to-day operations drive out planning.

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