Max McKeown Quotes

Business, more than any other occupation, is a continual dealing with the future; it is a continual calculation, an instinctive exercise in foresight.

I look at every business and ask, How long can this last? How can I identify the status quo and change it?

The successful man is the one who finds out what is the matter with his business before his competitors do.

I think long-term, not short-term.

The man of action has the present, but the thinker controls the future.

To deal with future we have to deal with possibilities. Analysis will only tell us what is.

America looks 10 minutes ahead; Japan looks 10 years.

Data is great, but strategy is better

Begin with the end in mind.

In a business, you've got to move on.

Good decisions can have bad short-term outcomes but be great for the business long-term.

The most essential thing for us was to get the business model right, then put the world-class technology under it to support it. At Merrill, that meant not doing what people expected.

I think three-to-five years ahead minimum. I have a short-term plan, a five-year plan and a decade plan.

No CEO ever says, 'Damnit, we need to increase research!' I want to encourage them to do that.

The manager has a short-range view; the leader has a long-range perspective.

My business is to prevent the future.

We don't look at what happens in our business in six-month periods.

This is a business. Be smart. Choose wisely.

Strategic planning is worthless - unless there is first a strategic vision.

Do, What you're going to do in longevity. Not just what happens tomorrow.

My own view is that every company requires a long-term view.

You just can't get too focused on worrying about what's going to happen in the next quarter. You have to worry about where the business is headed long-term.

It's important to have a really clear strategy so when you are in business, you only have to make micro-strategy changes.

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.