Operational Oversight Quotes

I expect you to be a leader, to supervise by example, to lead, not simply order others to do hard jobs. I will hold you personally responsible for the operations under you. If one of your men makes an error, you as well as he will be accountable.

As director of CIA, I was responsible for everything done in the agency's name, and it didn't matter whether that was done by an agency employee, a government contractor, a liaison service on our behalf, or a source on our behalf.

Never tell anyone outside my staff that the Submarine Force and the First Air Fleet were responsible for the failure at Midway. The failure at Midway was mine.

As board members, we only meet infrequently and are not as engaged with the front line, necessarily. The first thing I did as CEO was I left this board room.

I’m first to recognize that I don’t think that the CIA should run paramilitary operations…. Rather than destroying everything and starting all over, we ought to take what’s good … and get rid of things beyond the competence of the CIA, then pull things together and make it more effective …. It’ not going to be easy to find a place to put covert operations. It’s very difficult to keep things secret.

We will never forget the lessons that we learned as a result of San Bruno. It's really caused us to focus on safety with a laser-like sort of manner. There's always more work to be done.

The reality is even if you are a hands-on Mayor or Governor or chief executive, at best, you must know about 10 or 20% of what's going on. Otherwise, you never get through the day... I was very hands on, and there's lots of stuff I didn't know, and lots of things that either went wrong or right that I would find out about afterwards.

Nothing can be made except by makers, nothing can be managed except by managers. Money cannot make anything and money cannot manage anything.

Manage by exception.Only require reporting when there is a deviation from the plan.

Everyone is against micro managing but macro managing means you're working at the big picture but don't know the details.

I have a senior staff meeting every day, with key personnel who interface with the players - coaches, the medical staff, our analyst department. This is a useful exercise as it means we are all across what is happening and they are aware of my expectations.