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

The endless, useless urge to look on life comprehensively, to take a bird's-eye view of ourselves and judge the dimensions of what we have or have not done: this is life as landscape, or life as rΓ©sumΓ©. But life is incremental, and though a worthwhile life is a gathering together of all that one is, good and bad, successful and not, the paradox is that we can never really see this one thing that all of our increments (and decrements, I suppose) add up to.
Christian WimanRead
I am a person who continually destroys the possibilities of a future because of the numbers of alternative viewpoints I can focus on the present.
Doris LessingRead
Whether people be of high or low birth, rich or poor, old or young, enlightened or confused, they are all alike in that they will one day die.
Yamamoto TsunetomoRead
Conservatism, however, is too often a welcome excuse for lazy minds, loath to adapt themselves to fast changing conditions.
Sigmund FreudRead
If we want to save the world, we must have a plan. But no plan will work unless we meditate.
Dalai LamaRead
We are here and it is now. Further than that, all human knowledge is moonshine.
H. L. MenckenRead

A little wisdom, now and then

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