Life & Wisdom Quote by Phil Crosby

Crosby frames “slowness” less as a personality quirk and more as a tell: hesitation is evidence, not temperament. The line is built like a diagnostic tool. It turns a vague organizational complaint (“people are resistant”) into a concrete motive (“they’re afraid”), which is exactly the kind of blunt clarity you’d expect from a management thinker who made his name selling quality as discipline rather than inspiration. The sentence doesn’t argue; it tags.

The specific intent is managerial: stop romanticizing caution and start naming the emotion underneath it. “Usually” is the small wedge that makes the claim both forceful and defensible, leaving room for legitimate prudence while still pressuring the listener to interrogate their delay. The subtext is a challenge to the self-image of the skeptic. In workplaces, “slow to change” often masquerades as being rational, experienced, or “not chasing trends.” Crosby punctures that alibi by suggesting that the real driver is anxiety about competence, status, or loss of control once the rules shift.

Context matters: Crosby’s career sits in the late-20th-century quality movement, when American industry was being confronted by Japanese manufacturing and forced to rethink systems, not just slogans. In that environment, “the new” isn’t novelty for novelty’s sake; it’s new standards, new accountability, new measurement. Fear isn’t framed as shameful so much as expensive. The quote works because it translates a moral drama (bravery vs. timidity) into an operational one: if you want improvement, treat resistance as an emotional problem wearing the costume of “common sense.”