Quotes in blame

Errors of omission, lost opportunities, are generally more critical than errors of commission. Organizations fail or decline more frequently because of what they did not do than because of what they did.

Your purpose is to identify where in the process things go wrong, not who messed up. Look for systemic causes, not culprits.

If I were to command a general to turn into a seagull, and if the general did not obey, that would not be the general's fault. It would be mine.

Less than 5 percent result from people committing errors. Human error is a negligible source of our problems. Yet because we don't understand systems, we act as though human error were the primary cause of our problems.

blame the process not the person. We need to ask, "how did the process allow this to happen?"

The important thing in my view is not to pin the blame for a mistake on somebody, but rather to find out what caused the mistake.

A bad system will beat a good person every time.

The supposition is prevalent the world over that there would be no problems in production or service if only our production workers would do their jobs in the way that they were taught. Pleasant dreams. The workers are handicapped by the system, and the system belongs to the management.

Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets.

The merit rating nourishes short-term performance, annihilates long-term planning, builds fear, demolishes teamwork, [and] nourishes rivalry and politics. It leaves people bitter, crushed, bruised, battered, desolate, despondent, dejected, feeling inferior, some even depressed, unfit for work for weeks after receipt of rating, unable to comprehend why they are inferior. It is unfair, as it ascribes to the people in a group differences that may be caused totally by the system that they work in.