When leaders set out to achieve operational excellence and continuous improvement, they frequently look to mentorship and inspiration to help them move their businesses in the direction of Lean and Six Sigma concepts. The following list of the 51 Greatest Lean and Six Sigma Quotes is a great source of inspiration and knowledge, providing insightful commentary from well-known industry thoughat leaders. Also, These quotes encapsulate the essence of Lean and Six Sigma, empowering leaders to navigate towards efficiency, quality, and innovation effortlessly.
So, Come explore powerful sayings that align with the concepts of Lean and Six Sigma, transforming leaders into forces for revolutionary change within their companies.
51 Best Lean Quotes & Six Sigma Quotes for all leaders
Without a Standard, there is no logical basis for decision making or taking action.
Joseph M. Juran
The most effective way to improve productivity is to eliminate work.
William E. Conway, Jr.
We cannot become what we want to be by remaining what we are.
Max DePree, Herman Miller
The world we have created is a product of our thinking.
Albert Einstein
Quality means doing it right when no one is looking.
Henry Ford
Measurement is the first step that leads to control and eventually to improvement. If you can’t measure something, you can’t understand it. If you can’t understand it, you can’t control it. If you can’t control it, you can’t improve it.
H. James Harrington
Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is Success.
Henry Ford
Action is the foundational key to all success.
Pablo Picasso
Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.
Vincent Van Gogh
Kaizen means ongoing improvement involving everybody, without spending much money.
Masaaki Imai
The prevailing—and foolish—attitude is that a good manager can be a good manager anywhere, with no special knowledge of the production process he’s managing. A man with a financial background may know nothing about manufacturing shoes or cars, but he’s put in charge anyway.
W. Edwards Deming
Read Also: 51 Famous Leadership Quotes for all Leaders
Speed is everything. It is the indispensable ingredient to competitiveness.
Jack Welch
It is not the strongest nor the most intelligent of species that survives, but the one that is most adaptable to change.
Charles Darwin
A relentless barrage of “why’s” is the best way to prepare your mind to pierce the clouded veil of thinking caused by the status quo. Use it often.
Shigeo Shingo
It takes great effort to follow the rules of a pull system thus a half-hearted introduction of a pull system brings a hundred harms and not a single gain.
Taiichi Ohno
There is no waste in the world that equals the waste from needless, ill-directed, and ineffective motions.
Frank Bunker Gilbreth
Practise isn’t the thing you do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good.
Malcolm Gladwell
A superior leader is a person who can bring ordinary people together to achieve extraordinary results.
Unknown
Sometimes no problem is a sign of a different problem.
Mark Rosenthal
There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.
Peter Drucker
Out of clutter, find simplicity. From discord, find harmony. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.
Albert Einstein
There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.
Peter Drucker
We always need to sharpen our skills and look for new opportunities.
Bill Schmid
Sustainability at Nike means being laser-focused on evolving our business model to deliver profitable growth while leveraging the efficiencies of lean manufacturing, minimizing our environmental impact and using the tools available to us to bring about positive change across our entire supply chain.
Mark Parker
The more we retain our people, the less time we need to commit to recruiting new people.
Christine Thatcher
When everything is a priority, nothing is a priority.
Karen Martin,
Commitment without understanding is a liability.
Oliver Wight
If everybody else seems to be doing it one way, there might be more opportunity the other way.
If you do not know where you are going, every road will get you nowhere .
Henry A. Kissinger
If you don’t rock the boat, folks, guess who’s going to do it? Your competitors.
Todd Hockenberry
QUIT = Quickly Uphold Important Things .
Richie Norton
Only three things happen naturally in organizations: friction, confusion, and underperformance. Everything else requires leadership.
Peter Drucker
There’s a lot of opportunity in the void of innovation.
Rob Williams
Why not make the work easier and more interesting so that people do not have to sweat? The Toyota style is not to create results by working hard. It is a system that says there is no limit to people’s creativity. People don’t go to Toyota to ‘work’ they go there to ‘think’ .
Eliyahu M. Goldratt
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Don’t spend a lot of time on trying to cobble together a fully-integrated solution if the systems aren’t designed to play well together.
Chris Kuntz
Everyone in an organization should be integrated in pursuing the dual goals of zero breakdowns and zero defects.
Ramesh Lohia and Jack T. Parker
No one can change a person, but someone can be a person’s reason to change.
Unknown
I think it is an immutable law in business that words are words, explanations are explanations, promises are promises, but only performance is reality.
Harold Geneen
Why not make the work easier and more interesting so that people do not have to sweat? The Toyota style is not to create results by working hard. It is a system that says there is no limit to people’s creativity. People don’t go to Toyota to ‘work’ they go there to ‘think’ .
Taiichi Ohno
It is not the strongest nor the most intelligent of species that survives, but the one that is most adaptable to change.
Charles Darwin
And we are reducing the time line by reducing the non-value-added wastes.
Taiichi Ohno
There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.
Peter F. Drucker
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
George Bernhard Shaw
A corporation is a living organism; it has to continue to shed its skin. Methods have to change. Focus has to change. Values have to change. The sum total of those changes is transformation.
Andy Grove
If you always do what you always did, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.
Henry Ford
You can’t manage what you don’t measure.
Unknown
For any business decision, there are only two choices: action or inaction. The best option is to take action.
Ramesh Lohia and Jack T. Parker
In order to be irreplaceable one must always be different.
Coco Chanel
Successful people ask better questions, and as a result, they get better answers.
Anthony Robbins
Process improvement programs are like teaching people how to fish. Strategy maps and scorecards teach people where to fish.
Robert S. Kaplan
Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.
Albert Einstein
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FAQs
What inspired the compilation of Lean and Six Sigma quotes?
The increasing importance of Lean and Six Sigma approaches in business and leadership serves as the inspiration for this compilation.
Who are the authors of these quotes?
The quotations are from a range of Six Sigma and Lean experts, practitioners, and thought leaders.
How can these quotes benefit leaders and professionals?
For those engaged in Lean and Six Sigma processes, they provide insightful analysis, inspiration, and direction that improves decision-making and leadership.
Are these quotes suitable for leaders in specific industries, or are they universally applicable?
The quotations offer universal wisdom for professionals and leaders who embrace Lean and Six Sigma ideas, and they are applicable to a wide range of businesses.