Best Efforts

You know I believe that our main trouble is too many people putting forth their best efforts.  I've been asking 12,000 people a year, is anyone here not putting forth their best effort, please stand.  No one stands.

Everyone's putting forth their best effort.  And that's the problem.  We are being ruined by poeple putting forth their best efforts.  We'd be far better off if most of those people would just not show up for work.  Come in late.  Just forget it.  ...  We are being ruined by the best efforts of people who are doing the wrong thing.

-- William Edwards Deming (1900 - 1993), American statistician, college professor, author, lecturer, and consultant, known for his work in the field of quality management, as quoted by Brian Joiner