QuoteProject
People don't like to make mistakes.
W. Edwards Deming
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Mistakes are often feared and avoided, yet they are essential for growth and learning.

This quote by W. Edwards Deming highlights the common aversion people have to making mistakes. It suggests that the fear of errors can inhibit personal and professional development, as mistakes are often the stepping stones to improvement and innovation. Acknowledging and accepting mistakes can lead to valuable lessons and ultimately greater success.

Themes

MistakesLearningGrowthFearImprovement

In practice

Example use cases

In a team meeting to emphasize the importance of taking risks and learning from failures.

More from W. Edwards Deming

Competition should not be for a share of the market-but to expand the market.
W. Edwards DemingRead
The job can't be finished only improved to please the customer.
W. Edwards DemingRead
Don't expect smart people to listen to you without proof.
W. Edwards DemingRead
Quality begins with the intent, which is fixed by management.
W. Edwards DemingRead
Learn the basics of analytics and people will love you. If you don't have time to learn, hire someone.
W. Edwards DemingRead
Just because you can measure everything doesn't mean that you should.
W. Edwards DemingRead

Similar quotes

A religion true to its nature must also be concerned about man's social conditions....A ny religion that professes to be concerned with the souls of men and is not concerned with the slums that damn them, the economic conditions that strangle them, and the social conditions that cripple them is a dry-as-dust religion.
Martin Luther King, Jr.Read
Whenever we seek to avoid the responsibility for our own behavior, we do so by attempting to give that responsibility to some other individual or organization or entity. But this means we then give away our power to that entity.
M. Scott PeckRead
Any psychology of sign systems will be part of social psychology - that is to say, will be exclusively social; it will involve the same psychology as is applicable in the case of languages.
Ferdinand De SaussureRead
The judge placed his hands on the ground. He looked at his inquisitor. This is my claim, he said. And yet everywhere upon it are pockets of autonomous life. Autonomous. In order for it to be mine nothing must be permitted to occur upon it save by my dispensation.
Cormac MccarthyRead
A beautiful woman risking everything for a mad passion. A few wild weeks of happiness cut short by a hideous, treacherous crime. Months of voiceless agony, and then a child born in pain. The mother snatched away by death, the boy left to solitude and the tyranny of an old and loveless man. Yes, it was an interesting background. It posed the lad, made him more perfect as it were. Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic.
Oscar WildeRead
Jesus Christ knew he was God. So wake up and find out eventually who you really are. In our culture, of course, they’ll say you’re crazy and you’re blasphemous, and they’ll either put you in jail or in a nut house (which is pretty much the same thing). However if you wake up in India and tell your friends and relations, ‘My goodness, I’ve just discovered that I’m God,’ they’ll laugh and say, ‘Oh, congratulations, at last you found out.
Alan WattsRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.