The unforgivable crime is soft hitting. Do not hit at all if it can be avoided; but never hit softly – Theodore Roosevelt

Another teddy quote that i like. This might be applied to a variety of disciplines business, sport, politics, war or other. I will only discuss it’s meaning from a business point of view.

The unforgivable crime is soft hitting. Do not hit at all if it can be avoided; but never hit softly.

– Theodore Roosevelt

From a business point of view i see 2 possible meanings:

Entering into a market held by a competitor. Entering softly in a stealth mode might be a good idea. But if the competitor realizes that, you would be giving your competition the time to prepare a counter attack that would kick you out from that market. It is better to preparing a strong attack plan that would cripple the competition and might lead to you taking over the market. Even in case of failure, you would have acquired a nice market share and stunned the competition.

Attacking a competitor (criticism or rumors). The same idea as above, soft criticism or PR attack would only lead to a retaliation, and eventually a back and forth PR war. Thus better not do it. And if you are decided to do it, do it hard, so that it makes noise and render any pay back categorized only as revenge and less taken seriously.

Other interesting teddy’s quotes:

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena – Teddy Roosevelt
Dreams are a dime a dozen. It’s their execution that counts – Theodore Roosevelt