• Skip to main content
  • Skip to header right navigation
  • Skip to site footer
Farnam Street Logo

Farnam Street

Mastering the best of what other people have already figured out

  • Newsletter
  • Books
  • Podcast
  • Articles
  • Log In
  • Become a Member
TweetEmailLinkedInPrint
Culture|Reading Time: < 1

Henry Singleton on Strategic Planning — Stay Flexible

Henry Singleton has the best operating and capital deployment record in American business . .  . if one took the 100 top business school graduates and made a composite of their triumphs, their record would not be as good as Singleton’s.

—Warren Buffett, 1980

Henry Singleton hated detailed strategic plans, preferring to remain flexible.

“I know a lot of people have very strong and definite plans that they’ve worked out on all kinds of things, but we’re subject to a tremendous number of outside influences and the vast majority of them cannot be predicted. So my idea is to stay flexible.”

In a rare interview with a BusinessWeek reporter, he explained himself more simply:

My only plan is to keep coming to work. … I like to steer the boat each day rather than plan ahead way into the future.

Henry Singleton, as quoted in The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success.

Still curious? Read the excellent Distant Force: A Memoir of the Teledyne Corporation and the Man Who Created It to learn more about Singleton.

Read Next

Next Post:The sentiments of crowds A lot of wisdom in this excerpt from Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets: Surviving the Public Spectacle in Finance and Politics: … if there …

Discover What You’re Missing

Get the weekly email full of actionable ideas and insights you can use at work and home.


As seen on:

New York Times logo
Wall Street Journal logo
The Economist logo
Financial Times logo
Farnam Street Logo

© 2025 Farnam Street Media Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Proudly powered by WordPress. Hosted by Pressable. See our Privacy Policy.

  • About
  • Sponsorship
  • Support
  • Speaking

We’re Syrus Partners.
We buy amazing businesses.


Farnam Street participates in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising commissions by linking to Amazon.