Improvement quotes

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W_Edwards_Deming

Quality and Inspection

"Quality comes not from inspection, but from improvement of the production process."
  • Source: W. Edwards Deming (1982) Out Of The Crisis. The MIT Press. (2e ed. 1986) p. 29.

John_Dewey

Scientific Inquiry

“That the great majority of those who leave school should have some idea of the kind of evidence required to substantiate given types of belief does not seem unreasonable. Nor is it absurd to expect that they should go forth with a lively interest in the ways in which knowledge is improved and a marked distaste for all conclusions reached in disharmony with the methods of scientific inquiry.”
  • Source: John Dewey, Address to Section L, Education, of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, at Boston (1909), 'Science as Subject-Matter and as Method'. Published in Science (28 Jan 1910), N.S. Vol. 31, No. 787, 126.

Scientific Method

“The scientific method is the only authentic means at our command for getting at the significance of our everyday experiences of the world in which we live. It means that scientific method provides a working pattern of the way in which and the conditions under which experiences are used to lead ever onward and outward. ... Consequently, whatever the level of experience, we have no choice but either to operate in accord with the pattern it provides or else to neglect the place of intelligence in the development and control of a living and moving experience.”
  • Source: John Dewey, In Experience And Education (1938), 88

Samuel_C_Florman

Drudgery

“Once the common man was released from drudgery, the engineers reasoned, he would inevitably become educated, cultured and ennobled, and this improvement in the race would also be to the credit of the engineering profession. Improved human beings, of course, would have to be happier human beings.”
  • Source: From the book “The Existential Pleasures of Engineering” by {Samuel C. Florman}. Second edition published in 1994 by {St. Martin's Press}, New York, NY. First edition published in 1976. Kindle edition published in 2023. E-book ISBN 978-1466842366. Chapter 1, page 6.

John_Maynard_Keynes

Slow Progress

“From the earliest times of which we have record — back, say, to two thousand years before Christ [BCE 2000] down to the beginning of the eighteenth century [CE 1700] — there was no very great change in the standard of life of the average man living in the civilised centres of the earth... This slow rate of progress, or lack of progress, was due to two reasons — to the remarkable absence of important technical improvements and to the failure of capital to accumulate.”
  • Source: From the Essay “Economic Possibilities for our Grandchildren” written by John Maynard Keynes in 1930. Included in the book “Essays in Persuasion” edited by John Maynard Keynes and published by W. W. Norton & Company in 1963.

James_Randi

Science Is Best Defined

“Science is best defined as a careful, disciplined, logical search for knowledge about any and all aspects of the universe, obtained by examination of the best available evidence and always subject to correction and improvement upon discovery of better evidence. What's left is magic. And it doesn't work.”
  • Source: James Randi, The Mask of Nostradamus: The Prophecies of the World's Most Famous Seer (1993), Page 66.

Shoshana_Zuboff

Panopticon Coaching

“To be sure, some managers saw the enhanced certainty of their information about subordinates as an opportunity to accelerate learning and improve performance. They found that the data from the Overview System made it possible to survey a wide range of behavior for evidence of irregularities. To the extent that the sources of such irregularities could be discovered, the data could be used to 'coach' subordinates and to help them realign their behavior within acceptable standards... On the other hand, many of Cedar Bluff's managers were more interested in the possibility of obtaining foolproof data than in the opportunity of using such data for coaching. In the context of a conventional technology, managers had to rely on their subordinates for valid information. The quality of the data they received was likely to be a function of the quality of the reciprocal relationship they had established. In contrast, an informating technology could provide valid information under any conditions.”
  • Source: Zuboff, S. (1988). In The Age Of The Smart Machine: The Future Of Work And Power. New York, NY: Basic Books, p. 324. ISBN:0465032125.

Informating Strategy

“There are several lessons to be learned here. First, the requirements of an informating strategy support existing work-improvement efforts, such as the high commitment approach to work force management, with its emphasis on self-managing teams, participation, and decentralization.”
  • Source: Zuboff, S. (1988). In The Age Of The Smart Machine: The Future Of Work And Power. New York, NY: Basic Books, p. 413. ISBN:0465032125.