Quality Quotes
For many years I have collected quotes dealing with quality or continuous improvement. I would like to share some of them with you in the hopes that you will find one or two of value.
“Companies that
articulate visions have outperformed ones that haven’t by some 55 times,
and it shouldn’t be hard to understand why. Vision gives both organizations and
individuals something to believe in, and to strive for.”
Jim Collins,
“If you want one
year of prosperity, grow grain.
If you want ten years
of prosperity, grow trees.
If you want one
hundred years of prosperity, grow people.”
Chinese Proverb
“Recent surveys
show that two-thirds of all executives are disappointed with the results of
their quality (improvement) programs, while one-third feel
their efforts have given them a competitive advantage. This is a double whammy for the unhappy
two-thirds.”
Kymberly Hockman, Dupont Company
“Controlling
waste is like bailing a boat – you have to keep at it.”
Lyndon B. Johnson
“The secret of
success is constancy of purpose.”
Benjamin Disraeli, June 24, 1870
“We must be
champions of change because the only other alternative s to be victims of
change.”
Philip Mirvis, Organizational Psychologist
“Our perceptions
are our operational realities. With
good communications, we change perceptions from I’ll believe it when I
see it, to I’ll see it when I believe it.”
Peggy Hutchinson,
“My
company’s greatest challenge is: to discover new ways to add value to its
products and services without adding cost, and to drive out costs that
don’t add value.”
Edwin Artxt, Procter & Gamble
“There is
nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more
uncertain in its success, then to take the lead in the introduction of a new
order of things, because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done
well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well
under the new.”
Niccolo Machiavelli (1469 – 1527)
“1. Nothing is
ever influenced in just one direction.
In system thinking, every influence is both cause and effect.
2. Don’t push growth; remove factors
limiting growth.
3. Nature bats last.”
Peter M. Senge, The Fifth
Discipline
“What difference
does it make?…..So?”
Anonymous teenage
“Quality is what
the buyer says it is.”
Feigenbaum
“Quality is a
sense of appreciation that something is better than something else.”
John Stewart, McKinsey and Company
“Vision without
action is merely a dream.
Action without vision
just passes the time.
Vision with action can
change the world.”
Joel Arthur Barker
“When you are
intrinsically motivated you are probably obnoxious.”
Ron Moen
“To not know is
bad. To not want to know is
worse.”
African Proverb
“Industry told
us we were teaching all the wrong things.
They explained that academe is industry’s only supplier with
quality so bad that 100% of the incoming goods require rework.”
Dr. Alex Miller,
“One accurate
measurement is worth a thousand expert opinions.”
Rear Adm. Grace Murray Hopper
“Growth is a
means not an end.”
Donella Meadows
“If you are not
having fun doing what you are doing, chances are your are
not doing the best you can do.”
James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner