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Famous W. Edwards Deming Quotes
“Put a good person in a bad system and the bad system wins, no contest.”
“You have to manage a system. The system doesn't manage itself.”
“Each system is perfectly designed to give you exactly what you are getting today.”
“You must not run your Organization as a functional hierarchy. You must understand it as a System.”
“No requirement of industry is so much neglected as operational definitions.”
“It would be a mistake to export western management to a friendly country.”
“Absence of defects does not necessarily build business... Something more is required.”
“The worker is not the problem. The problem is at the top! Management!”
“It's not enough to do your best; you must know what to do & then do your best.”
“Adopt a new philosophy of cooperation (win-win) in which everybody wins.”
“...the most important things we need to manage can't be measured.”
“The ultimate purpose of collecting the data is to provide a basis for action or a recommendation.”
“The job can't be finished only improved to please the customer.”
“You can only elevate individual performance by elevating that of the entire system.”
“Just because you can measure everything doesn't mean that you should.”