Strategic Prioritization Quotes

He who defends everything defends nothing.

Contrary to … conventional wisdom, the consequence of past U. S. Defense cuts were not bad …. austerity can be useful in forcing Washington to think strategically, something it rarely does when times are flush.

Most startups are not nearly focussed enough. They work hard...maybe, but they don't work hard on the right things.

In a campaign against more than one state or army, it is more fruitful to concentrate first against the weaker partner than to attempt the overthrow of the stronger in the belief that the latter's defeat will automatically involve the collapse of the others.

When you have to earmark human and monetary resources for such a long time, it starts to hinder your other activities.

The SBA should be redirected to focus on its core missions of capital access, contracting, and counseling, while reducing duplication, overlap, and wasteful spending. Doing so will greatly improve its ability to better advocate for small businesses.

It's not worth moving heaven and earth, spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person.

We have to make sure, at Apple, that we stay true to focus, laser focus - we know we can only do great things a few times, only on a few products.

American strategic doctrine suggests that Mexico is of second-level importance to the United States. It ranks below Japan and Indonesia, Brazil and India, Egypt and Israel, and European powers including Britain, France, and Germany. This is a grave geopolitical miscalculation.

Little minds try to defend everything at once, but sensible people look at the main point only; they parry the worst blows and stand a little hurt if thereby they avoid a greater one. If you try to hold everything, you hold nothing.

In the military we also learn principles of war which also work in a corporate setting: How do you concentrate as much of your force as possible on a critical point and take a risk elsewhere? In business that translates into focusing your investment on marketing, sales, or R&D, whichever will give you the greatest return.

I doubt there's any government in the world that guides itself primarily by strategy or conceptual documents or worldview. Anybody who has the reins of power has to look at practical limitations and tradeoffs - the fact that you can focus at most on one or two things at a time, that resources are limited.

Our customers, system, and shareholders are best served when we direct our focus and energy towards executing against these critical customer expectations.

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

To be strategic is to concentrate on what is important, on those few objectives that can give us a comparative advantage, on what is important to us rather than others, and to plan and execute the resulting plan with determination and steadfastness.

Success in business hinges mostly on the ability to get the important things done.

It sounds good to say you're going to campaign everywhere, but ultimately you have to make choices.

You have got the right strategy, the right geography; you have got the right customers. You need to prioritise them better; we need to grow them better, mind them better. We need to give more value to them, and we need to execute a lot of areas in the organisation where we are not executing.

You have to understand what it is that you are better at than anybody else and mercilessly focus your efforts on it.

We can't be fighting everybody at one time.

If we are to remain mission focused, as we must be if we are to be relevant in an uncertain age, the abandoning those things that do not further the mission is a leadership imperative.