One of Deming’s pet hates was motivational slogans in the workplace – things like “Do it right first time”, and “Zero defects”. Two from the IT world that come to mind are “Real Engineers Ship” (Steve Jobs), and “Stay focused and keep shipping” (Mark Zuckerberg, see article here, which has an interesting photo of his desk).
Jobs and Zuckerberg make pretty powerful examples of sloganeering. I find it interesting that Deming was so against slogans, they’re everywhere. So let’s dive a little deeper.
Deming stated that slogans should eliminated because they do nothing but “generate frustration and resentment” in the workforce.
“Implicit in such sloganeering is the supposition that employees could, if they tried do better. They are offended, not inspired by this suggestion” – Deming Continue reading