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Politics is human beings; it’s addition rather than subtraction.

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
If we know anything, it is that weakness is provocative.
DONALD RUMSFELD

Knowledge Weakness
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
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 you develop rules, never have more than ten.
DONALD RUMSFELD

Advice Rule
Every day is filled with numerous opportunities for serious error. Enjoy it.
DONALD RUMSFELD

Enjoyment Error Opportunity Serious
Remember where you came from.
DONALD RUMSFELD

History One Liner Past Remember
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
What you measure improves.” A corollary rule in the military is that “You get what you inspect, not what you expect.
DONALD RUMSFELD

Expectation Improvement Inspect Measure Military Rule
Be precise. A lack of precision is dangerous when the margin of error is small.
DONALD RUMSFELD

Dangerous Error Lack Margin
It isn’t making mistakes that’s critical; it’s correcting them and getting on with the principal task.
DONALD RUMSFELD

Criticism Mistake Principle Task
Reduce the layers of management. They put distance between the top of an organization and the customers.
DONALD RUMSFELD

Customer Distance Management Organization
If it were a fact, it wouldn’t be called intelligence.
DONALD RUMSFELD

Fact Intelligence
Those who made the decisions with imperfect knowledge will be judged in hindsight by those with considerably more information at their disposal and time for reflection.
DONALD RUMSFELD

Decision Government Imperfection Knowledge Politics Reflection War
Let’s stick something in the ground and not pretend that it’s perfect.
DONALD RUMSFELD

Ground Perfection Pretend
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

Politics is human beings; it’s addition rather than subtraction.

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Politics is human beings; it’s addition rather than subtraction.

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