Operational Excellence Quotes
"Senior management is simply a flag bearer when a business decision is made. It is of no use unless others follow the flag."
- Eiji Toyoda, former Chairman of Toyota
"Rough waters are truer tests of leadership. In calm water, every ship has a good captain."
- Swedish proverb
"Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision and action can change the world."
- Joel A. Barker, futurist
"In the new world, it is not the big fish which eats the small fish, it's the fast fish which eats the slow fish."
- Klaus Schwab
"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit."
- Aristotle
"A journey of a thousand miles must begin with the first step."
- Lao Tzu
"Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results."
- Albert Einstein
"Give a man a fish you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."
- Chinese proverb
"Anything that can go wrong will go wrong."
- Murphy's Law
"Everything should be made as simple as possible, not simpler."
- Albert Einstein
"The problems that exist in the world cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them."
- Albert Einstein
"The starting point for improvement is to recognize the need."
- Masaaki Imai
"As much as 95% of quality related problems in the factory can be solved with seven fundamental quantitative tools."
- Dr. Kaoru Ishikawa
"When we fail to grasp the systemic source of problems, we are left to 'push on' symptoms rather than eliminate underlying causes."
- Peter Senge
"Without a standard, there is no logical basis for decision making or taking action."
- Joseph M. Juran
"Continuous effort - not strength or intelligence - is the key to unlocking our potential."
- Sir Winston Churchill
"The only way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas."
- Sir Winston Churchill
"Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference."
- Sir Winston Churchill
"Don't look with your eyes, look with your feet. Don't think with your head, think with your hands."
- Taiichi Ohno
"The only thing you can't recycle is wasted time."
- Taiichi Ohno
"Progress is impossible without the ability to admit mistakes."
- Massaki Imai
"Plans are nothing, planning is everything."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
"Even if you are on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there."
- Will Rogers
"Speed is everything. It is the indispensable ingredient in competitiveness."
- Jack Welch
"The most dangerous kind of waste is the waste we don't recognize."
- Shigeo Shingo
"Whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right."
- Henry Ford
"There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all."
- Peter Drucker
"If you want small changes in life, work on your attitude. If you want big and primary changes, work on your paradigm."
- Stephen Covey
"What we have to learn to do, we learn by doing."
- Aristotle
"The purpose of an organization is to enable ordinary people to do extraordinary things."
- Peter Drucker
"A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves."
- Lao Tzu
"A river cuts through rock, not because of its power, but because of its persistence."
- Jim Watkins
"The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes."
- Marcel Proust, French novelist
"Everyone is creative, but we are only as creative as we allow ourselves to be."
- Martellus Bennett
"If I had an hour to solve a problem, I'd spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes about solutions."
- Albert Einstein
"Design is not what it looks like or feels like. Design is how it works."
- Steve Jobs
"If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."
- Henry Ford
"To complicate is easy, to simplify is hard. To complicate, just add, everyone is able to complicate Few people are able to simplify."
- Bruno Munari
"Design must reflect the practical and aesthetics in business but above all... good design must primarily serve people."
- Thomas Watson
"Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion."
- Cyril Northcote Parkinson
"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication."
- Leonardo Da Vinci
"Quality is free."
- Philip Crosby
"Complexity is your enemy. Any fool can make something complicated. It is hard to make something simple."