William Scranton Quotes

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.

I don't have a particular recommendation other than that we base decisions on as much hard data as possible. We need to carefully look at all the options and all their ramifications in making our decisions.

September 11 was horrific, but I've been through enough crises before that I had my own pattern as to how to collect facts, what a leader should do, how to communicate with people, how to set up operating mechanisms to work our way through it.

Anything you say before a pandemic occurs sounds alarmist; anything you say after it occurs is inadequate.

A President in a ... crisis makes, say, 10 bets a day. Maybe I made the wrong choice three times.

The actions you plan to take and the actions you actually decide to take [in a crisis] are not always the same.

Crisis management … is the worst type of policy because you will miss things.

The value of catastrophic events is that they can help people face up to problems that are otherwise impossible to address.

NASA trains you to assess emergency situations and react in a way to keep yourself and everyone else safe.

Evaluate. Long experience had taught me to evaluate and assess. When the unexpected gets dumped on you, don’t waste time. Don’t figure out how or why it happened. Don’t recriminate. Don’t figure out whose fault it is. Don’t work out how to avoid the same mistake next time. All of that you do later. If you survive.

The easiest period in a crisis situation is actually the battle itself. The most difficult is the period of indecision - whether to fight or run away. And the most dangerous period is the aftermath. It is then, with all his resources spent and his guard down, that an individual must watch out for dulled reactions and faulty judgment.

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.

When you are in a situation or a crisis, you need to define, what is the unique role that I can play?

In the Army, we address a crisis by identifying critical objectives, planning a response, marshaling resources and communicating the plan clearly.

Collaborative decision-making is very poor in crises.

There's so many things, when you're in national security, that you do that aren't perfect, but you do them because you think you're doing what the country needs to be safe.

What we found out with Katrina is that the country is still unable to deal with disaster. God forbid this happens in San Francisco.

If you're going to decide to run a data-driven campaign, decision-making has to follow it.

The Chinese use two brush strokes to write the word 'crisis.' One brush stroke stands for danger; the other for opportunity. In a crisis, be aware of the danger--but recognize the opportunity.

Men only act in a state of necessity and usually only recognise necessity in a situation of crisis.

Some decisions, like opening a fire hydrant to put out a fire, are easy to make. Other decisions, like deciding how to best distribute a drought-limited water supply among urban, rural and recreational uses, require careful deliberation.

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 the business that you guys are in too. We try to get as much information as we can and make the best decisions that we can for the football team.

Finding patterns is easy in any kind of data-rich environment; that's what mediocre gamblers do. The key is in determining whether the patterns represent signal or noise

I am not going to make decisions based on barricades and blockades, nor am I going to make decisions based on the short-term volatility of the oil price.