Robert Heller Quotes

Management teams aren't good at asking questions. In business school, we train them to be good at giving answers.

The experience of learning how to get straight to the core of a problem proved to be of immense value later when I had a long succession of responsibilities in large, complex government departments.

The path to success isn't through my lizard brain, it's through high quality collaboration and making good stuff and understanding difficult situations fully enough to come up with good (or even great) solutions quickly.

That's all managing is: just coming up with the right questions and getting the right answers.

I have picked the very, very best deputy that I could. David Parker is a fantastic guy. He's a person who I trust absolutely. He's got a wonderful sense for policy. He will be great on organisation, and I know that I could not have a better deputy.

The quality of a leader cannot be judged by the answers he gives, but by the questions he asks.

A C.E.O.'s job is leadership, problem solving, and team building. I've done that my whole career.

The successful business executive can handle challenges and solve problems at a remarkable clip.

Great CEOs are not just born with shiny hair and a tie.

The role of leadership is to transform the complex situation into small pieces and prioritize them.

I work strategically with my management team to make all decisions.

Decisiveness is the one word that makes a good manager.

If I have one skill as a manager, I can make things extremely clear.

A manager is a guide. He takes a group of people and says, 'With you I can make us a success; I can show you the way.'

In my experience, the most effective professionals in business and government have the ability to get things done. They're trained to work with multiple stakeholders, to understand how to identify a problem, devise solutions, to compromise and work well with others.

Dad was an outstanding leader. He'd bring in top thinkers from a wide array of fields - how to fix the Detroit schools, for example. I watched him in these meetings. He listened and probed.

I would say my strengths are vision and strategy.

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

Leadership is inspiring people. Management is keeping the trains running on time.

People talk about flip charts, tactic boards and other rubbish like that. But the truth is that as a manager you just need to get the best out of the players at your disposal.

You can't do anything successfully in life without leadership.

I worked under a lot of 'top-class managers at Spurs and had to take over as 'caretaker a couple of times when things were not going well. I know what's required.

You need good staff with their own opinions - Mick Jones has been a great No 2 as he's not a yes-man - but at the end of the day the buck stops with you and the good managers are the ones who make more good decisions than bad.

You need the management personnel who can help you out with various things. The captain can't be asked to get into every decision.

Good management is the art of making problems so interesting and their solutions so constructive that everyone wants to get to work and deal with them.