Anthony Lake Quotes

Stop setting goals. Goals are pure fantasy unless you have a specific plan to achieve them.

If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it.

What gets left out is the narrative between the bullets, which would tell us who's going to do what and how we're going to achieve the generic goals on the list.

People (political and military leaders) much prefer to speak of what they are going to do rather than what the outcome will be.

I've got a long-term plan.

I don't really do without any plans. If somebody is trying to do something, you must have plans.

Sound strategy starts with having the right goal.

What gets measured, gets done.

This is what we do!

Not failure, but low aim, is the crime.

Clarity of vision is the key to achieving your objectives.

Without execution, 'vision' is just another word for hallucination.

Good managers ensure good outcomes, but great leaders can deliver a vision by getting people to work together.

If you don't clarify your goal, you'll never identify the best approach.

To solve a problem or to reach a goal, you don't need to know all the answers in advance. But you must have a clear idea of the problem or the goal you want to reach.

First of all, you've got to have a vision of 'What kind of program do I want to have?' Then you've got to have a plan to implement it. Then you've got to set the example that you want, develop the principles and values that are important, and get people to buy into it.

All good performance starts with clear goals.

Leaders tend to focus on 'what to do,' but the real issue is more often 'how to do it.'

In any campaign you make a lot of promises and you talk about a wide range of issues. When you're elected, the work of accomplishing those goals has to be sequenced. You can't do everything at once.

Practically, systemic thinking can be used to identify problems, analyze their boundaries, design strategies and policy interventions, forecast and measure their expected impacts, implement them, and monitor and evaluate their successes and failures.

When you are the manager, you want to win.

I'm process-orientated. Awards, by their nature, are results-orientated.

You can have X's and O's, you can have talent, but if you don't have a vision, it won't work.

For every philosophical idea about how we're going to do things, there has to be a plan to get there, and we have to be able to execute it, first in practice and then in games.

As a leader, you have to have a vision that inspires people around you.