Robert Shea Quotes

Aggression is the most common behavior used by many organizations, a nearly invisible medium that influences all decisions and actions.

If I, taking care of everyone's interests, also take care of my own, you can't talk about a conflict of interest.

When men organize themselves into groups, and they make rules based on common or self-interest, it's always tangled and political.

Politics exist in the boardroom, as well.

As anyone who has covered the company for any length of time knows, Yahoo's record on major decision-making has been akin to a hippie commune - a lot of wrangling internally in a culture where everyone seems to have a voice and a reticence to push the button to launch.

It worries me about what happens if people in government are looking for that next job: 'Yeah I'm working now, not as much money as I could be making, but when I leave here, that's where I'm headed.' That ultimately infects whatever it is that they're doing.

The beauty and riddle in studying the motives of any politician is in trying to decide what is idealism and what is self-interest, and often we are left to conclude that the answer is a mixture of the two.

Management is the set of skills that can help get things done. Unfortunately, its practice is too often a bag of manipulative tricks to advance someone's own interests, which creates cynicism.

There are only two forces that unite men - fear and interest.

Critics might contend that putting former private-sector CEOs in the president's Cabinet places the fox in the henhouse. But it's unlikely such executives would expose themselves to the headaches if they weren't genuinely motivated by the call to service.

All of those things had been talked about, suggested, rumored, as a manager and as a member of the Knicks organization, I couldn't allow myself to think that way or believe that.

In the mind of Bill Clinton, political considerations outweigh even life-and-death matters of great concern to his own law-enforcement officials, not to mention the nation.

I worked with a group of people who argued day and night - professors, officials, the Minister of Finance - but there were decisions that I had to make.

In principle, every social situation involves strategic interaction among the participants.

If most people are not willing to see the difficulty, this is mainly because, consciously or unconsciously, they assume that it will be they who will settle these questions for the others, and because they are convinced of their own capacity to do this.

A friend in power is a friend lost.

Too many problem-solving sessions become battlegrounds where decisions are made based on power rather than intelligence.

The special interest is the other buy’s interest and general interest is your own.

Politics begins when you have two people in a room or when you have one person looking in a mirror.

There is little leadership or followership on the Hill.

vested interest

Governments almost never act with moral clarity and for very good reason. They are dealing with competing interests.

You consult your honor; I my interest.

Most politicians make decisions based on their own best interest rather than the greater good.

Because of the term ‘whip’, it is assumed that members can be beaten into submission, but I’ve seldom seen that be successful. It’s getting to know the individual, what they think, how they feel, what’s going on in their personal life, are they agonizers or quick deciders, what kind of leverage can be used with them or on them.