The whole is more than the sum of its parts.
One of my big beliefs about Washington is that we highly overstate the power of individuals and highly underrate seeing Washington as a system, in general, but, in particular, we highly underrate the power of Congress.
My belief is that policy cannot be piecemeal.
I've always been interested in public health approaches because it seems to me we have this yearning for silver bullets, and that is not in fact how change comes about. Change comes through silver buckshot - a lot of little things that achieve results. That's a classic public health approach.
Problems are not solved on the level of problems. Analyzing a problem to find its solution is like trying to restore freshness to a leaf by treating the leaf itself, whereas the solution lies in watering the root.
Good governance is not fire-fighting or crisis-management. Instead of opting for ad-hoc solutions the need of the hour is to tackle the root cause of the problems.
We are generalists. You can't draw neat lines around planet-wide problems. Planetology is a cut-and-fit science.
There is nothing more negligent than attempting to address a problem one finds on a branch than by censoring the leaves.
Management works in the system; leadership works on the system.
Many modern (so-called) Reformers are just as dangerous as the physician who makes a wrong diagnosis of a disease. They see the trouble from without and prescribe external remedies, while the cause of the trouble is within and needs internal treatment.
You have to see it on a broader level. But you also have to activate it properly.
Having great components is not enough, and yet we've been obsessed in medicine with components. We want the best drugs, the best technologies, the best specialists, but we don't think too much about how it all comes together.
The body is one integrated system, not a collection of organs divided up by medical specialties. The medicine of the future connects everything.
A growing body of clinical observation has pointed to the conclusion that the family therapy must be oriented to the family as a whole.
The affairs of life embrace a multitude of interests, and he who reasons in any one of them, without consulting the rest, is a visionary unsuited to control the business of the world.
