 Public servants are paid to serve the American people. Do it well. |
| Don't be a bottleneck. If a matter is not a decision for the President or you, delegate it. Force responsibility down and out. Find problem areas, add structure and delegate. The pressure is to do the reverse. Resist it. |
| Arguments of convenience lack integrity and inevitably trip you up. |
| If the staff lacks policy guidance against which to test decisions, their decisions will be random. |
| You will launch many projects, but have time to finish only a few. So think, plan, develop, launch and tap good people to be responsible. Give them authority and hold them accountable. Trying to do too much yourself creates a bottleneck. |
| In our system leadership is by consent, not command. To lead a President must persuade. Personal contacts and experiences help shape his thinking. They can be critical to his persuasiveness and thus to his leadership. |
| If you develop rules, never have more than ten. |
| Congress, the press, and the bureaucracy too often focus on how much money or effort is spent, rather than whether the money or effort actually achieves the announced goal. |
| Politics is human beings; it's addition rather than subtraction. |
| If you are not criticized, you may not be doing much. |
| Reduce the layers of management. They put distance between the top of an organization and the customers. |
| There are a lot of people who lie and get away with it, and that's just a fact. |
| It isn't making mistakes that's critical; it's correcting them and getting on with the principal task. |
| Work continuously to trim the White House staff from your first day to your last. All the pressures are to the contrary. |
| Remember where you came from. |
| Reduce the number of lawyers. They are like beavers - they get in the middle of the stream and dam it up. |
| Preserve the President's options. He may need them. |
| First rule of politics: you can't win unless you're on the ballot. Second rule: If you run, you may lose. And, if you tie, you do not win. |
| If in doubt, don't. If still in doubt, do what's right. |
| 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. |
