N. Robert Hammer Quotes

But tending machinery was one thing; defining what we were trying to do and why we were doing it, and developing ways to measure how well the job was done - this was something else again.

You need to decide what problems, what opportunities, what projects you're going to work on.

And ours is a business that requires discipline and focus.

The difference between management and administration (which is what bureaucrats used to do exclusively) is the difference between choice and rigidity.

Everyone designs who devises courses of action aimed at changing existing situations into preferred ones.

Profitability is coming from productivity, efficiency, management, austerity, and the way to manage the business.

I am the result of the good choices I've made and the bad choices.

Well they have an input into policy but in the end governments are elected to put together policy but the good thing about the Wentworth Group is that you know you've got 11 pretty capable people with a lot of good ideas.

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

In business, you try to solve problems.

Business principles are only as good as the practices that back them up.

About half my time is spent on business operation type stuff.

In setting goals and executing a strategy, Wanda is sophisticated. We have good systems and departments. If targets are not reached, a yellow light goes off.

I think we have to notice that the business processes we use right now for thinking and planning and budgeting and strategy are all delivered on very tight agendas.

If you run a business, if you are responsible for a lot of people, you come to grips with the reality that you have to have discipline. You have to protect the enterprise in order to take care of the employees. So, therefore, you can't be wasteful. You can't squander things, or you jeopardize other people.

Organizational changes to fix the problems usually create new vulnerabilities in the process of fixing the old ones.

It is our job as always to focus on what we can control in the business.

Strategic Work is all about the big questions: Who? What? When? Where? Why? Tactical Work is all about answers: This is the system we use to do each task. This is how we do it, how we measure it, how we monitor it.

Too often in business, only financial data is gathered - and then it is distributed only to management. Other key indicators that relate to performance areas also need to be tracked. Information on performance has to be made available to those people who can best use it - those doing the work.

When you're the CEO, you take responsibility.

You need a different checklist and different mental models for different companies.

Having too many layers of approval in a dynamic battlefield environment delays our ability to fight and win, especially when troops are engaged in combat.

If you see something that doesn't make sense, ask. Change it. Think about dollars, think about your soldiers' time, think about efficiency.

As the director, you are the organiser who has to have all the answers. You are the person with maximum clarity.

I am good at conceptualizing and building institutions.