Good business demands tough decisions based on rigorous analysis and unwavering follow-through. Emotion can't really play a part. The challenge we all face as leaders is to let the feelings churn inside you but then to present a calm exterior, and I learned to do that.

One of my predecessors is said to have observed that in making his decisions he had to operate like a football quarterback - he could not very well call the next play until he saw how the last play turned out. Well, that may be a good way to run a football team, but in these days it is no way to run a government.

You have a meeting, you hear about the strategy and then you think, "Yeah, we've got to do this." And then you go home that night, you're about to go to sleep, and you think, "I can't do that." And then you get up the next morning and go back through it, and we just iterate to a point where you finally have to make a decision and go for it.

We would find ourselves in those moments saying, "I don't know the answer either, but you own the decision and tomorrow tell us what you decided." And so that quality decision making, moving fast was so different.

I have always believed in evolving a consensus before taking any major decision.

Our people expect their President and the Congress to find essential agreement on issues of great moment, the wise resolution of which will better shape the future of the Nation.