Richard Dawkins Quotes

In the fall of the year 2000, there just happened to be a decision point when they asked me to become Chief Executive Officer of the company. It was a time when, as you remember, we were starting to have some real problems in the California energy markets.

A lot of what I do is running businesses rather than buying stocks. My worst decision is probably when I know I have the wrong chief executive running the business, and I keep on waiting to make the difficult decision of replacing him.

There is a difference between hiring a CEO and turning over control of the business.

I think any time there's a change in leadership there's a different personality, there's a different style involved with it, different demeanor.

The Presidency is not a showman’s job. You can’t make a Teddy Roosevelt out of me.

CEO pay is ridiculously out of line with performance.

The salary of the chief executive of the large corporation is not a market award for achievement. It is frequently in nature of a warm personal gesture by the individual to himself.

As a company grows from 25 to 50 to 100 to 200 to 500 to 1000 people, the characteristics of who is the very best talent in leadership roles will change. It's rarely the case that your leadership team at 1000 people is the same leadership team you had a 25 people.

I hope that soon after the next election, amongst them they will have decided, settled, and the leader will be ready to take over from me.

It takes time, but I have a promising team of younger Ministers, and I am quite sure from amongst them, one leader will emerge.

To recruit staff, I traveled all over the country talking with people who had been working on one or another aspect of the atomic-energy enterprise and people in radar work, for example, and underwater sound, telling them about the job, the place that we are going to, and enlisting their enthusiasm.

I was scouted working at the register at McDonald's in Melbourne, Australia. I worked there as my first job, and a guy walked in and gave me his card. I was 16. I was skeptical, but I looked it up when I got home, and it was legitimate.

Who my successor is will be up to the board, not me.

In the newspaper business, I was in the last generation before the arrival of the personnel manager. You were hired by editors - and editors who would take a chance on what they perceived to be talent and not hire a resume.

There definitely comes a time where a fresh pair of eyes and fresh leadership would be good, and the Conservative Party has got some great people coming up - the Theresa Mays, and the George Osbornes, and the Boris Johnsons.

My leadership will end the Obama era and begin a new era of American prosperity.

I think the employer should be much freer to make decisions on who she or he employs.

The Goldstone Committee was formed in April of 2009, after I was not prime minister. So it was a new political situation.

Deciding whether or not to bring in an outside CEO is one of the most gut-wrenching decisions that a founder will ever need to make.

Best to give Chief of Staff John Kelly a clean slate and the ability to build his own team.

Accountability is a two way street. We can't just make it easier for us to fire people; we must make it easier for us to hire people. It takes VA an average of 240 days to complete the hiring process for executives joining VA from outside government. We are losing talented people because it simply takes too long.

There are plenty of good, rational, compassionate and talented conservatives who deserve a microphone and a platform. It's time to pass the baton to a new generation of leaders who don't speak - or think - like Archie Bunker.

The coach is the first person who is under pressure but when a new manager comes you should give him time.

As a former member of JWA's management team, and more recently as a director, I am delighted to have the opportunity now to take the reins of leadership of the company. I look forward to working with JWA's management team to chart the course and execute the plan to further strengthen and broaden JWA's leading product franchises.

It's normal to have early difficulties when you get a new manager with a new concept.