Julie Payette Quotes

Always think, 'what's the worst that can happen' and have some kind of strategy to deal with it

Chess helps you to concentrate, improve your logic. It teaches you to play by the rules and take responsibility for your actions, how to problem solve in an uncertain environment.

Making good decisions is a crucial skill at every level.

Among a great many other things that chess teaches you is to control the initial excitement you feel when you see something that looks good. It trains you to think before grabbing and to think just as objectively when you're in trouble.

I grew up military but have met very few women that have a mission plan for when things don't work out. I attack everything like that.

That's all managing is: just coming up with the right questions and getting the right answers.

Another way to be prepared is to think negatively. Yes, I'm a great optimist. but, when trying to make a decision, I often think of the worst case scenario. I call it 'the eaten by wolves factor.' If I do something, what's the most terrible thing that could happen? Would I be eaten by wolves? One thing that makes it possible to be an optimist, is if you have a contingency plan for when all hell breaks loose. There are a lot of things I don't worry about, because I have a plan in place if they do.

It's bad policy to speculate on what you'll do if a plan fails when you're trying to make a plan work.

Suppose you had a small electrical fire and... a structural engineer [looked] at your home's wiring [and] reports that the wiring is "shot" and there is a 50% chance that your house would burn down in the next few years unless you replace all the wiring. The job will cost $20,000... so you get an independent assessment. The next engineer agrees with the first warning. You can either continue to shop for additional evaluations until you find the one engineer in 1,000 that is willing to give you the answer you want, "Your family is not in danger" or you can change the wiring.

Plans are of little importance, but planning is essential.

A military mindset is objectively analyzing a planned course of action and anticipating the likely consequences before you take that action.

you must be careful never to allow doubt to paralyze you. always take the decisions you need to take, even if you're not sure you're doing the right thing. You'll never go wrong if, when you make a decision, you keep in mind an old German proverb: 'The devil is in the detail.' Remember that proverb and you'll always be able to turn a wrong decision into a right one.

When you have a time of crisis what happens depends on what ideas are floating around, and what ideas have been developed, and thought through, and are made effective.

Study the situation thoroughly, go over in your imagination the various courses of action possible to you and the consequences which can and may follow from each course. Pick out the course which gives the most promise and go ahead.

Rather than reacting to every risk we hear and see, we should make an effort to discern which ones we can do something about.

It is better to have a bad plan than no plan.

If you talk about preemption you better know things rather than think things.

It doesn't always happen according to the way you have planned things out but I feel if you have covered most of the aspects, it does help out there in the middle.

Exploring how you could make a bad situation worse can sometimes tell you what not to do.

I like to study the question or the problem or the opportunity in hand, work with the team to come with the right answer, make a decision, and act upon it. Some people have said that, actually, today they pretty much like their bankers dull.

A president, like a college freshman, can't know in advance which questions he'll have to answer or what topics he'll have to master. He has to be flexible, supple, and responsive. He has to be comfortable with multiple-choice.

I also believe that it is time to begin the fundamental analysis of how we got here, what led us here and what we need to do in order to ensure that we are equipped with the best possible intelligence as we face these issues in the future.

As a leader, you have to have the ability to assimilate new information and understand that there might be a different view.

Any leader needs to be constantly interested in what's going on in the world, and constantly ready - even when things are going well - to change.

I'm fascinated with films that deal with strategy because there's a right way and a wrong way to get the job done.