Top 250 Quotes & Sayings by W. Edwards Deming - Page 3

The worker is not the problem. The problem is at the top! Management!

People need to know what their jobs are.

People are entitled to joy in work.

Management's job is to optimize the whole system.

You do not install quality; you begin to work at it.

Learning is not compulsory; it's voluntary... But to survive, we must learn.

It would be a mistake to export western management to a friendly country.

Cease dependence on inspection to achieve quality. Eliminate the need for inspection on a mass basis by building quality into the product in the first place.

A man who knows not his limitations is of no use to anyone.

People learn in different ways: reading, listening, pictures, watching.

Confusing common causes with special causes will only make things worse.

Managers don't like giving appraisals, and employees don't like getting them. Perhaps they're not liked because both parties suspect what the evidence has proved for decades: Traditional performance appraisals don't work.

New product and new types of service are generated, not by asking the consumer, but by knowledge, imagination, innovation, risk, trial and error on the part of the producer, backed by enough capital to develop the product or service and to stay in business during the learn months of introduction.

I am not reporting things about people. I am reporting things about practices.

When we cooperate, everybody wins.

Now, we learn that a system must have an aim. Without an aim, there is no system.

To successfully respond to the myriad of changes that shake the world, transformation into a new style of management is required. The route to take is what I call profound knowledge, knowledge for leadership of transformation.

We should be guided by theory, not by numbers.

Does the customer invent new product or service? The customer generates nothing. No customer asked for electric lights. There was gas and gas mantles, which gave good light.

...the most important things we need to manage can't be measured.

You do not find knowledge in a dictionary, only information.

Experience by itself teaches nothing... Without theory, experience has no meaning. Without theory, one has no questions to ask. Hence, without theory, there is no learning.

All models are wrong; some models are useful.

Sub-optimization is when everyone is for himself. Optimization is when everyone is working to help the company.

The aim proposed here for any organization is for everybody to gain - stockholders, employees, suppliers, customers, community, the environment - over the long term.

Plants don't close from poor workmanship, but from poor management.

Improve constantly and forever the system of production and service, to improve quality and productivity, and thus constantly decrease costs.

The transformation will come from leadership.

It is management's job to direct the efforts of all components toward the aim of the system. The first step is clarification: everyone in the organization must understand the aim of the system, and how to direct his efforts toward it. Everyone must understand the damage and loss to the whole organization from a team that seeks to become a selfish, independent, profit center.

It is important that an aim never be defined in terms of activity or methods. It must always relate directly to how life is better for everyone. . . . The aim of the system must be clear to everyone in the system. The aim must include plans for the future. The aim is a value judgment.

Competition should not be for a share of the market-but to expand the market.

A manager of people needs to understand that all people are different. This is not ranking people. He needs to understand that the performance of anyone is governed largely by the system that he works in, the responsibility of management.

Nobody should try to use data unless he has collected data.

Forces of Destruction: grades in school, merit system, incentive pay, business plans, quotas.

He that would run his company on visible figures alone will in time have neither company nor figures.

You can see from a flow diagram who depends on you and whom you can depend on. You can now take joy in your work.

A leader's job is to help his people.

You can not hear what you do not understand.

Knowledge is theory. We should be thankful if action of management is based on theory. Knowledge has temporal spread. Information is not knowledge. The world is drowning in information but is slow in acquisition of knowledge. There is no substitute for knowledge.

Foremost is the principle that the purpose of consumer research is to understand the customer's needs and wishes, and thus design product and service that will provide better living for him in the future. A second principle is that no one can guess the future loss of business from a dissatisfied customer.

3% of the problems have figures, 97% of the problems do not.

Managing by results only makes things worse.

To copy is to invite disaster.

It does not happen all at once. There is no instant pudding.

Experience by itself teaches nothing.

Learn the basics of analytics and people will love you. If you don't have time to learn, hire someone.

The source of innovation is freedom. All we have - new knowledge, invention - comes from freedom. Discoveries and new knowledge come from freedom. When somebody is responsible only to himself, [has] only himself to satisfy, then you'll have invention, new thought, now product, new design, new ideas.

Quality begins with the intent, which is fixed by management.

If someone can make a contribution to the company he feels important.

I think that people here expect miracles. American management thinks that they can just copy from Japan - but they don't know what to copy!

The most important things cannot be measured.

The main difference between service and manufacturing is the service department doesn't know that they have a product.

You must have a supplier relationship of constant improvement.

The only useful function of a statistician is to make predictions, and thus to provide a basis for action.

A leader must have knowledge. A leader must be able to teach.

It is wrong to suppose that if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it – a costly myth

A system must be managed. It will not manage itself.

You can only elevate individual performance by elevating that of the entire system.

There is no economy in having one operation produce a part and another separate the good ones from the bad ones.

People are born with intrinsic motivation, self-esteem, dignity, curiosity to learn, joy in learning.