A biography for W. Edwards Deminghasn’t been written yet.
“The average American worker has fifty interruptions a day, of which seventy percent have nothing to do with work.”
“Lack of knowledge... that is the problem.”
“Customer expectations? Nonsense. No customer ever asked for the electric light, the pneumatic tire, the VCR, or the CD. All customer expectations are only what you and your competitor have led him to expect. He knows nothing else.”
“You can not define being exactly on time.”
“Rational behavior requires theory. Reactive behavior requires only reflex action.”
“What should be the aim of management? What is their job? Quality is the responsibility of the top people. Its origin is in the boardroom. They are the ones who decide.”
“It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.”
“Research shows that the climate of an organization influences an individual's contribution far more than the individual himself.”
“In 1945, the world was in a shambles. American companies had no competition. So nobody really thought much about quality. Why should they? The world bought everything America produced. It was a prescription for disaster.”
“Whenever there is fear, you will get wrong figures.”
“If you do not know how to ask the right question, you discover nothing.”
“You should not ask questions without knowledge.”
“Hold everybody accountable? Ridiculous!”
“The emphasis should be on why we do a job.”
“Export anything to a friendly country except American management.”
“Quality is everyone's responsibility.”
“People with targets and jobs dependent upon meeting them will probably meet the targets - even if they have to destroy the enterprise to do it.”
“We are here to make another world.”
“I predicted in 1950 that in five years, manufacturers the world over would be screaming for protection. It took only four years.”
“My mother was my biggest role model. She taught me to hate waste. We never wasted anything.”