Strategic Flexibility Quotes

No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.

Bestow rewards without regard to rule, issue orders without regard to previous arrangements; and you will be able to handle a whole army as though you had to do with but a single man.

Our military plans should be based on the assumption of unpredictability, rather than on carefully drawn, static models of the world.

Famous pivot stories are often failures but you don't need to fail before you pivot. All a pivot is is a change is strategy without a change in vision. Whenever entrepreneurs see a new way to achieve their vision - a way to be more successful - they have to remain nimble enough to take it.

If an acquisition can speed a process or fill a gap, we'll jump right to that. It's about timing, need... it's not necessarily an algorithm.

Well, you know, any defense force worth its salt has to be able to deal with uncertainty, has to be able to deal with events that we may not have planned for.

Executives need ample flexibility to respond to the market. That means both reducing costs and increasing innovation.

If you ask me, 'So what is your business model?' Our business model's always about shifting to higher value opportunities.

Depending on the point in the game and what's necessary, if you can deliver the play, whatever that is - heck, if it's a screen - and you get a guy open, and he scores a big basket for you, that gives me as much of a charge as anything.

Arafat's whole life has been governed by struggle and a cause. Everything he has done as leader of the Palestinians is to always leave his options open, never close a door.

If everything you do needs to work on a three-year time horizon, then you’re competing against a lot of people, But if you’re willing to invest on a seven-year time horizon, you’re now competing against a fraction of those people, because very few companies are willing to do that. Just by lengthening the time horizon, you can engage in endeavours that you could never otherwise pursue. At Amazon we like things to work in five to seven years. We’re willing to plant seeds, let them grow—and we’re very stubborn. We say we’re stubborn on vision and flexible on details.

Wherever the enemy wants to fight, we will follow him to the ends of the Earth. We'll adapt, we'll train, we'll advise, we'll mentor, and we'll fight, and we'll fight well.

The power and diversity of the Armed Forces, active Guard and Reserve, the resolve of our fellow citizens, the flexibility in our command to navigate international waters that remain troubled are all essential to our security.

Founders go wrong when they start to believe their business plan will materialize as written. I advise entrepreneurs to burn their business plan - it's simply too dangerous to the health of your business.

I found out that if you are going to win games, you had better be ready to adapt.

Government tends to stifle innovation, and it abhors improvisation. Any good military strategist will tell you that a battle plan rarely survives past the first engagement. After that, you have to improvise to survive and to win.

Skill at creating, exploiting, and exiting crucial alliances beats ownership of fixed assets

What he's really talking about - and I'm speaking for Mike Flynn, not Donald Trump - is that he's saying, essentially, we have to have options. We have to have a lot of options. And, frankly, we do. We do have a lot of options.

We tell ourselves we're here to be flexible and to be nimble, and not necessarily to stick to a master plan.

Good investing is a peculiar balance between the conviction to follow your ideas and the flexibility to recognize when you have made a mistake.

When we have a clear sense of our destination, we can be flexible in the route we take to reach it.

We have learned the need to be flexible or to have flexible forces, agile forces, who can move quickly, secure themselves when they arrive in a location, assess the needs of a given mission, and move to that mission.

They say in the military that a good battle plan can last as long as five minutes in real fighting. After that, it comes down to if the general is favored by fate and the spirits.

I do believe it is important to be future-ready with a portfolio to be able to deal with however the market evolves. This is better than just forecasting accurately but in having the weapons ready to deal with the uncertainties.

When a plan or strategy fails, people are tempted to assume it was the wrong vision. Plans and strategies can always be changed and improved. But vision doesn't change. Visions are simply refined with time.