Quotes from the books I read
If a chain must not fail, there is no point in strengthening only some of the links.
Quality matters when quantity is an inadequate substitute. If a building contractor finds that her two-ton truck is on another job, she may easily substitute two one-ton trucks to carry landfill. On the other hand, if a three star chef is ill, no number of short-order cooks is an adequate replacement.
As an investor, one wants to find limiting factors that can be fixed, such as paint, rather than factors that cannot be fixed, such as highway noise. If you have a special skill or insight at removing limiting factors, then you can be very successful.
unfortunately, humans have put more effort, over more time, into thinking about war than any other subject.
It is often said that a strategy is a choice or a decision.
Doing strategy is more like designing a high-performance aircraft than deciding which forklift truck to buy or how large to build a new factory.
Managers should be designers of decisions rather just decision makers.
Performance is the joint outcome of capability and clever design.
It is hard to show your skill as sailor when there is no wind.
To change the group's norms, the alpha member must be replaced by someone who expresses different norms and values.
To date, there is no successful online source of revenue other than advertising.
Executive can choose an action based on gut feel and, even a year later, no one will know whether it was a good choice.
The anomalies are not in nature but in the mind of the acute observer, revealed by a comparison between the facts and refined expectations.
Strategy should be intersection between what was important and what was actionable.
You must have a variety of tools for fighting your own myopia and for guiding your own attention.
You must develop the ability to question your own judgment.
You must cultivate the habit of making and recording judgments so that you can improve.
Many attempts at strategy lack a good diagnosis. Shift your attention from what is being done to why it is being done.
Good judgement is hard to define and harder still to acquire.
You should first commit your judgments to writing.
"Social herding" presses us to think that everything is OK because everyone else is saying so. The "inside view" presses us to ignore the lessons of other times and other places, believing that our company, our nation, our new venture, or our era is different.
Happy reading !!!
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