Strategic Errors Quotes

The genius of you Americans is that you never made clear-cut stupid moves, only complicated stupid moves.

He was what I often think is a dangerous thing for a statesman to be - a student of history; and like most of those who study history, he learned from the mistakes of the past how to make new ones.

War is mainly a catalogue of blunders.

The British bombing of Caen beginning on D-Day in particular was stupid, counter-productive and above all very close to a war crime.

The toughest are people mistakes, when you put the wrong person in a job. Sometimes you're too slow to move them out. Or not getting the right people involved to solve a problem, or doing something out of anger; you learn, just don't do that. But I'd have to say the Whale was one of them, and I would also have to put Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual on the list at this point.

But figuring out Saddam Hussein was one our greatest mysteries. He marched to his own drummer and frequently as this unfolded he made decisions which were sometimes inexplicable to us and sometimes didn't look very smart.

After nearly making a terrible mistake not buying See's, we've made this mistake many times. We are apparently slow learners. These opportunity costs don't show up on financial statements, but have cost us many billions.

I think coaches sometimes foul their own players out of game by benching them too long when in foul trouble

Most corporate disasters are driven not by market forces, but by CEOs messing things up.

I think many start-ups make mistakes because they are focusing on things that are farther ahead, and they haven't done the work that has built the foundation to support it.

As a rule, the more mistakes there are in a game, the more memorable it remains, because you have suffered and worried over each mistake at the board.

We all make mistakes, but intelligence enables us to do it on purpose.

Leaders and statesmen are always making mistakes and misjudgments.

The only real difference between a wise man and a fool, Moore knew, was that the wise man tended to make more serious mistakes—and only because no one trusted a fool with really crucial decisions; only the wise had the opportunity to lose battles, or nations.

Cardinals are never off-base. They are often ill-advised.

Like most of those who study history, he (Napoleon III) learned from the mistakes of the past how to make new ones.

The two worst strategic mistakes to make are acting prematurely and letting an opportunity slip.

The biggest mistakes, early on, involved foreign policy and involved the strategy for health care.

In some ways, getting away from the headquarters and having a little time to reflect allows you to find errors in your strategy. You get to rethink things. Often, that helps me correct a mistake that I made or someone else is about to make.

Why do the President and Vice-President constantly change the subject when asked to explain why things are going so badly in Iraq? The answer is simple. They have been consistently wrong about Iraq, and the results speak for themselves.

The Conservatives played like England cricketers - too many rash strokes and run-outs, dropped catches and bowling anywhere but the stumps.

The mistakes of the Iraq war are not only tactical and strategic, but historical. It is essentially a war of colonialism, attempted in the post-colonial age.

Of one thing be certain: if a CEO is enthused about a particularly foolish acquisition, both his internal staff and his outside advisors will come up with whatever projections are needed to justify his stance. Only in fairy tales are emperors told that they are naked.

Iraq is going to go down as one of the greatest blunders in American history.