Quotes from W. Edwards Deming

What good comes of making a suggestion to foreman? He just smiles and walks away.

Employee involvement, employee participation, and quality of work life, these groups predictably disintegrate within a few months from frustration, finding themselves unwilling parties to a cruel hoax, unable to accomplish anything, for the simple reason that no one in management will take action on suggestions for improvement.

I could do a much better job (fewer mistakes) if I knew what the program is to be used for. The specifications don't tell me what I need to know (programmer).

At the successive sessions, people may tear up what they did in the previous session and make a fresh start with clearer ideas. This is a sign of advancement.

An annual report that claims value-added, as a benefit to a community or to a society, is rare.

On idea of merit rating) Everyone propels himself forward or tries to, for his own good, on his own life preserver. The organization is the loser. Merit rating rewards people that do well in the system. It does not reward attempts to improve the system. Don't rock the boat.

The problem lies in the difficulty to define a meaningful measure of performance.

On promotion on performance) The problem lies in the difficulty to define a meaningful measure of performance.

The pay and privilege of the captains of industry are now so closely linked to the quarterly dividend that they may find it personally unrewarding to do what is right for the company.

Eighty-five percent of the reasons for failure are deficiencies in the systems and process rather than the employee. The role of management is to change the process rather than badgering individuals to do better.

You can expect what you inspect.

Loss of market, and resulting unemployment, are not foreordained. They are not inevitable. They are man-made.

Eighty percent of American managers cannot answer with any measure of confidence these seemingly simple questions: What is my job? What in it really counts? How well am I doing?

The aim of education should be to preserve and nurture the yearning for learning that a child is born with.

Does experience help? NO! Not if we are doing the wrong things.

Experience by itself teaches nothing.

The greatest waste … is failure to use the abilities of people…to learn about their frustrations and about the contributions that they are eager to make.

A goal without a method is nonsense.