Life & Wisdom Quote by Phil Crosby

Crosby frames change the way a quality engineer would: not as inspiration, but as a controllable variable. The first sentence is almost therapeutic - change as a "friend" - yet it’s a deliberately unromantic kind of comfort. Friends are welcomed, but also understood; you learn their patterns, anticipate their needs, stop being surprised by their arrival. Crosby’s intent is to demystify organizational transformation, draining it of drama and recasting it as something you can schedule, budget, test, and improve.

The second line sharpens into a quiet rebuke. "By plan, not by accident" targets the most common corporate fairy tale: that disruption is either inevitable fate or a charismatic leader’s spontaneous breakthrough. Crosby, a defining voice in late-20th-century quality management, wrote in the shadow of Japanese manufacturing ascendance and an American business culture that often treated problems as heroic firefights. His subtext is that accidents aren’t neutral; they’re expensive. In quality terms, unplanned change is variation, and variation is where defects breed.

What makes the quote work is its moral inversion. Planning, typically painted as bureaucratic, becomes the ethical choice: respect for workers’ time, customers’ trust, and the system’s integrity. "Friend" also implies continuity - you don’t abandon who you are; you evolve with intention. Crosby is selling discipline as liberation: when change is designed, it stops feeling like chaos and starts feeling like competence.