Harri Holkeri Quotes

I have had my results for a long time: but I do not yet know how I am to arrive at them.

Whenever we had a serious question to decide, we had a conference with the groups involved.

I'm a problem-solver.

I want to make smart choices.

'How' is a great thing to know. 'Why' is the ultimate. I'm the 'why' coach. Why are we doing this? Why are we not doing that? Why is this not working? Those are the things I want to know.

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

Joint committees are heat generators rather than light producers.

I've actually come to respect the most irritatingly challenging people I've worked with as really valuable in improving group decision-making and what to do and what to invest in.

I try to look at problems very clearly and think, 'How do we get out of this? What will work? What will be the consequences for the people involved?'

I'm a pretty good problem solver.

I always try to stay methodical and logical with everything I do, playing cricket and making decisions.

I don't have all the answers. I'm just supposed to present what I think is an issue and have dialogue start.

Are your people uncomfortable during meetings and tired at the end? If not, they're probably not mixing it up enough and getting to the bottom of important issues.

You've got to be smart about tackling.

Passion provides purpose, but data drives decisions.

My experience in decision-making has shown that patterns are tough to break. In the military, we study an opponent, looking for gaps, flaws, or weaknesses that can be exploited. Successful leaders at all levels in all disciplines conduct this kind of analysis.

Meetings are usually terrible, but they shouldn't be.

If you are trying to get people to work on a problem together, it's best if they don't know where you, as the supervisor/manager, stand on the question.

I've certainly seen R&D groups, typically funded by large corporations, where they bring together a lot of smart people and nothing happens. And the reason nothing happens is that they don't have a clear goal.

Writing is sort of like chess for me. You have to think carefully before you move, thinking, planning.

Self-delusion is rarely a good strategy for effective management.

Students who learn to collaborate and negotiate - on Capitol Hill, in the board room, in everyday life - will outperform peers who have higher test scores.

There are a lot of things behind a negotiation process.

I taught my executive team how to argue.

As a manager, you need to have your own vision and what you want to do with the team.