Thought 05NOV2007

A LEADERSHIP PRIMER - [lesson 6]
"You don't know what you can get away with until you try" You know the expression, "it's easier to get forgiveness than permission."
Well, it's true. Good leaders don't wait for official blessing to try things out. They're prudent, not reckless. But they also realize a fact of life in most organizations: if you ask enough people for permission, you'll inevitably come up against someone who believes his job is to say "no." So the moral is, don't ask. Less effective middle managers endorsed the sentiment, "If I haven't explicitly been told 'yes,' I can't do it," whereas the good ones believed, "If I haven't explicitly been told 'no,' I can." There's a world of difference between these two points of view.
General Colin Powell - Chairman (Ret), Joint Chiefs of Staff - Former Secretary of State - USA

To change and to improve are two different things - German Proverb