B. H. Liddell Hart Quotes

It's bad policy to speculate on what you'll do if a plan fails when you're trying to make a plan work.

In the army we are drilled into execution and then supervision, to make sure everything goes the way you planned it. But there is another thing that we do in the military, that I think perhaps isn't done enough in corporate life: As soon as you have made that decision, you start on the contingency planning. Because there is, as we like to say, a thinking, breathing enemy out there, who is not going to let you do just what you want.

I think being prepared for anything is the way to go.

A good plan will therefore include alternative actions, the choice between them being left open until the passage of time indicates which is feasible and which is not.

To truly prepare for the unexpected, you've got to position yourself to keep a couple of options open so when the door of opportunity opens, you're close enough to squeeze through.

If there's one thing that's certain in business, it's uncertainty.

When you face unexpected events, you have to try to overcome those problems, but at the same time, you have to continue working according to the plan that you defined since the beginning. So that's what we have tried to do - not to avoid the urgent responses but to continue the route that we had defined.

You have to be fast on your feet and adaptive or else a strategy is useless.

Well, you know, any defense force worth its salt has to be able to deal with uncertainty, has to be able to deal with events that we may not have planned for.

Nobody has a crystal ball, and part of evolving a business plan is to say, 'I might have said we're going left, but I see the opportunity and we're going right.'

Security... it's simply the recognition that changes will take place and the knowledge that you're willing to deal with whatever happens.

What is certain about the future is that even the best efforts to predict the conditions of future war will prove erroneous. What is important, however, is to not be so far off the mark that visions of the future run counter to the very nature of war and render American forces unable to adapt to unforeseen challenges.

I learned one of the very important lessons in life in the 9/11 attacks. It's good to have a plan for your future; it's even better to write your plan in pencil.

It's always good to have different plans.

I do believe it is important to be future-ready with a portfolio to be able to deal with however the market evolves. This is better than just forecasting accurately but in having the weapons ready to deal with the uncertainties.

I don't map out my future to the minute details.

It is such an uncertain universe out there that you have to create what I call 'real' options and develop capabilities that will enable you to deal with an environment that will change anyway.

I want to keep different options for different futures open all the time.

The more adaptability exists for a given kind of decision, the less risky it is to make plans for the future, and therefore the more likely it is that more people will make more plans in such areas.

I'm not a big believer in linear paths. I would always have these sort of five-year plans and think, 'Ok, I wouldn't mind to try to get here in five years.'

If too many things have to happen in order to bring about the situation you want, then back out of it and try again later.

In the space of two days I had evolved two plans, wholly distinct, both of which were equally feasible. The point I am trying to bring out is that one does not plan and then try to make circumstances fit those plans. One tries to make plans fit the circumstances.

Any plan is bad which is incapable of modification.

There are only two kinds of plans. Plans that might work and plans that won't work... you have to take a plan that might work and make it work.

There's nothing wrong with a plan, but remember Von Moltke's famous dictum that no plan survives first contact with the enemy. The danger is a plan that seduces us into thinking failure is impossible and adaptation is unnecessary - a kind of ‘Titanic' plan, unsinkable (until it hits the iceberg).