W. Edwards Deming Quotes

A problem is that if all of us are collectively responsible for a big world goal, then no single agency or politician is held accountable if the goal is not met. Collective responsibility for world goals works about as well as collective farms in agriculture, and for the same reason.

Everybody's business is nobody's business.

The goat which has many owners will be left to die in the sun.

Responsibility is a unique concept... You may share it with others, but your portion is not diminished. You may delegate it, but it is still with you...

where everybody is guilty, nobody is.

Few are guilty, but all are responsible.

Questions have arisen about the policing of science. Who is responsible for the policing? My answer is: all of us.

I'd love to be the first one to say this, but it automatically turns into - we all have those responsibilities that we ignore because we don't feel like they're ours.

That which is everybody's business is nobody's business.

In passing, also, I would like to say that the first time Adam had a chance he laid the blame on a woman.

There's man all over for you, blaming on his boots the fault of his feet.

What's everybody's work is nobody's work.

People are very apt to shift the Blame off themselves, and lay it upon others, when perhaps they themselves are as much or more to blame. The popular Cry is against Merchants and Traders, as if they had ruined the Country; or against those who are or have been in the Government

Divided responsibility is no responsibility.

Boards are screens. What “the Board” does is the act of nobody; and nobody can be made to answer for it.

It is less important to find solutions than scapegoats.

Men's common guise is always to lay the burden on some other back.

Don't try to shift your responsibilities on to somebody else.

A single Executive may be responsible, but a numerous one cannot be responsible.

It is a team game, we all play for each other; obviously we win and lose as a team, but I like to take the blame when we lose.

If you are going to call out your teammates, you have to call out yourself, too. You can't just separate yourself from the rest, because if you are going to get 90 percent of the credit when you win, you have to be willing to take 90 percent of the blame when you lose.

It is a fault of the whole team if you don't deliver.

All players have equal duties and merits and share the reward and sometimes the blame.

Everybody is looking for a reason to not to take responsibility for their own actions in hand.

I don't blame you for everything, she told me. Just the stuff my friends & I can agree on.