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It isn’t making mistakes that’s critical; it’s correcting them and getting on with the principal task.

Donald Rumsfeld

Be able to resign. It will improve your value to the President and do wonders for your performance.
DONALD RUMSFELD

Improvement Performance President Value Wonder
Enjoy your time in public service. It may well be one of the most interesting and challenging times of your life.
DONALD RUMSFELD

Challenge Interesting Life Public Service Time
Preserve the President’s options. He may need them.
DONALD RUMSFELD

Need Option Preserve President
Don’t necessarily avoid sharp edges. Occasionally they are necessary to leadership.
DONALD RUMSFELD

Edge Leadership Necessary
Prune – prune businesses, products, activities, people. Do it annually.
DONALD RUMSFELD

Activity Business People Product
Arguments of convenience lack integrity and inevitably trip you up.
DONALD RUMSFELD

Argument Convenience Inevitable Integrity
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
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
Let’s stick something in the ground and not pretend that it’s perfect.
DONALD RUMSFELD

Ground Perfection Pretend
Simply because you do not have evidence that something exists does not mean that you have evidence that it doesn’t exist.
DONALD RUMSFELD

Evidence Existence
Be precise. A lack of precision is dangerous when the margin of error is small.
DONALD RUMSFELD

Dangerous Error Lack Margin
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
The price of being close to the President is delivering bad news. You fail him if you don’t tell him the truth. Others won’t do it.
DONALD RUMSFELD

Deliver Failure President Price Truth
If the staff lacks policy guidance against which to test decisions, their decisions will be random.
DONALD RUMSFELD

Decision Guidance Lack Random
If you develop rules, never have more than ten.
DONALD RUMSFELD

Advice Rule

It isn’t making mistakes that’s critical; it’s correcting them and getting on with the principal task.

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It isn’t making mistakes that’s critical; it’s correcting them and getting on with the principal task.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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