W. Edwards Deming

Monetary rewards are not a substitute for intrinsic motivation.

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

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.

People work in the system. Management creates the system

It's not enough to do your best; you must know what to do & then do your best.

It is a mistake to assume that if everybody does his job, it will be all right. The whole system may be in trouble.

Management by results is confusing special causes with common causes.

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?

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.

If you don't understand how to run an efficient operation, new machinery will just give you new problems of operation and maintenance. The sure way to increase productivity is to better administrate man and machine.

The aim of leadership should be to improve the performance of man and machine, to improve quality, to increase output, and simultaneously to bring pride of workmanship to people. Put in a negative way, the aim of leadership is not merely to find and record failures of men, but to remove the causes of failure: to help people to do a better job with less effort.

If you do not know how to ask the right question, you discover nothing.

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

The prevailing system of management has crushed fun out of the workplace.

Management by results - like driving a car by looking in rear view mirror.

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.

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

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

'Quality' means what will sell and do a customer some good - at least try to.

People don't like to make mistakes.

The prevailing - and foolish - attitude is that a good manager can be a good manager anywhere, with no special knowledge of the production process he's managing. A man with a financial background may know nothing about manufacturing shoes or cars, but he's put in charge anyway.