Henry Mintzberg Quotes

The next move is always the test.

If you don't have a viable strategy, you will be defeated by someone who does.

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

Anybody can do a deal. The tough part is doing the deal at the right time, being strategic.

I think long-term, not short-term.

Strategic planning is not strategic thinking. Indeed, strategic planning often spoils strategic thinking, causing managers to confuse real vision with the manipulation of numbers.

The real heart of strategy is the strategist.

I've always had goals, always had visions, always had a plan, always been very strategic.

Strategy is all very well, but it pays to give thought from time to time to the results.

Hope is not strategy. Hope fits with vision, but we must have a strategy and a process to make our vision become a reality.

You politicians have got to look further ahead; you always got a Putter in your hands, when you ought to have a Driver.

You can learn much about life from a checker game: surrender one to take two; don't make two moves at one time; move up, not down; and when you reach the top, you may move as you like.

Even though plans themselves are worthless, the exercise of planning is very valuable and totally missing in most startups today.

Strategy is about shaping the future.

Football is a bit like chess: it's not just the piece being moved that matters; it's also the effect that move has on all the other pieces.

You sit at the board and suddenly your heart leaps. Your hand trembles to pick up the piece and move it. But what chess teaches you is that you must sit there calmly and think about whether it's really a good idea and whether there are other, better ideas.

The essence of strategy is that you must set limits on what you're trying to accomplish.

Strategy requires thought, tactics require observation.

I'm fascinated with films that deal with strategy because there's a right way and a wrong way to get the job done.

Never forget this simple truism: Forecasting is marketing, plain and simple.

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

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

All men can see these tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved.

In life, as in chess, forethought wins.

Behind every kick of the ball there has to be a thought.