Dan Maffei Quotes

In business, staying focused requires that you turn most opportunities down.

If you want to make good use of your time, you've got to know what's most important and then give it all you've got.

We also have to ask if we focusing on the most important priorities.

One of the key lessons I learned at Netflix was the necessity of focus.

Decide what you want, decide what you are willing to exchange for it. Establish your priorities and go to work.

I'm quite good at multitasking, but I have to do things immediately.

Effective leadership is putting first things first. Effective management is discipline, carrying it out.

You do what is manageable, and you do it well rather than trying to do a thousand things just a little bit OK.

You can only bite off so much, so you gotta know what you want to do.

Short-term thinking is the greatest enemy of good government.

What I've learned is that if you really want to be successful at something, you'll find that you put the time in. You won't just ask somebody if it's a good idea, you'll go figure out if it's a good idea.

I always felt the gifts you need as governor were more suited for my personality. I'm a good team player, but I'm not a policy wonk. In Congress, you need 218 votes to make anything happen. When you're governor, you're the CEO of the state. You establish the vision and standards for the state. You're the leader.

I was a good student, but I was the biggest procrastinator.

Strategy is about making choices, trade-offs; it's about deliberately choosing to be different.

Management is all about managing in the short term, while developing the plans for the long term.

The first essentials, of course, is to know what you want.

It's how you prioritize in life.

Voters do not decide issues. They decide who will decide issues.

In order to have your short term policies accepted, you have to have your long term policies understood.

Fully consider the future and the immediate results of all undertakings, and the good and bad sides of all past actions.

One of the challenges of a good policy is trying to figure out what your priorities are.

Decision by majorities is as much an expedient as lighting by gas.

There is something wrong with the way in which we make our decisions. The Government listen too much to the pollsters and the party managers. The trouble is that they are not even very good at politics, and they are entering too much into policy decisions. As a result, there is too much short-termism, too much reacting to events, and not enough shaping of events. We give the impression of being in office but not in power. Far too many important decisions are made for 36 hours' publicity.

Two types of choices seem to me to have been crucial in tipping their outcomes towards success or failure: long-term planning, and willingness to reconsider core values.

It’s very hard for any administration, and I’ve worked with seven, to focus on any more than one major thing at a time.