Tom Lehrer Quotes

I'm always good at seeing five, ten steps ahead. Like, really thinking ahead, you know? Reverse engineering, whatever it is, you know.

We must solve problems before they occur, rather than scrambling to deal with crises after they erupt..

I always say that my job is not to think about today. My job is to look around the corner and feel and see what's coming, and then warn everybody else.

Look several months ahead, see where the obstacles lie, and figure out ways to overcome them.

We need to be able to answer not yesterday's challenges but to tomorrow's challenges.

Architecture and building is about how you get around the obstacles that are presented to you. That sometimes determines how successful you'll be: How good are you at going around obstacles?

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.

One of the things Mr. Kennedy taught me was that in laying out a new project, you shouldn't try to cope with every little problem.

Let our advance worrying become advance thinking and planning.

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.

It is far better to foresee even without certainty than not to foresee at all.

I look three to five years ahead, not 10 years behind.

Guys are natural problem solvers - they like to have strategies.

As part of our renewal - we need to fight problems, not just wait for them to take place.

We solve last year's problems without thinking about the future.

Early on, in discussions of financial oversight, people would say, 'Well, this is a very complicated problem, therefore it requires a complicated solution.' And at that step, I would say, 'Well, wait a minute. Just because it's a complicated problem doesn't mean the best course of action immediately is one that's complicated.'

Game management is accomplished by staying constantly alert and then reading and reacting to potential problem situations before they materialize. It all boils down to paying attention to details.

Plan backwards as well as forward. Set objectives and trace back to see how to achieve them. You may find that no path can get you there. Plan forward to see where your steps will take you, which may not be clear or intuitive.

One of the tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency.

Futures thinking is hard work. Fortunately, you do get better at it with practice. It's worth the effort.

I have always been fascinated with those who try to look over the horizon and see things that are coming at us.

Sometimes we have to think very clearly about the unthinkable because the unthinkable sometimes happens.

In the business world, if you're not looking ahead, you're missing something.

Dad was an outstanding leader. He'd bring in top thinkers from a wide array of fields - how to fix the Detroit schools, for example. I watched him in these meetings. He listened and probed.

Strategy is, at some level, the ability to predict what's going to happen, but it's also about understanding the context in which it is being formulated. And then you have to be open-minded to the fact that you're not going to get it right at the very beginning.