Science Quote by W. Edwards Deming

Deming’s line lands like a small rebuke to the managerial fetish for precision. “Exactly on time” sounds objective, like a stopwatch verdict, but he’s pointing to how slippery the idea becomes the moment you try to define it. Is “on time” the second the meeting starts? The minute? The time it takes to sit down, load the slides, get the system working, get people mentally present? In real systems, boundaries blur, measurement has error, and definitions get negotiated after the fact to protect someone’s narrative.

The intent isn’t to excuse lateness; it’s to expose a deeper problem: organizations often treat punctuality (or any metric) as a moral badge when it’s actually a crude proxy. Deming’s lifelong argument in quality management was that you don’t improve outcomes by scolding individuals; you improve the system that produces the outcomes. Obsessing over “exact” arrival times can create performative compliance (people badge in, then disappear) rather than real readiness. It can also create adversarial relationships, where employees game definitions and managers tighten them, a mini arms race of mistrust.

Context matters: Deming shaped postwar industrial thinking by pushing statistical process control and an ethic of continuous improvement. In that world, “exactly” is an illusion with costs. The subtext is classic Deming: if you can’t define it cleanly, you probably can’t manage it wisely. Measure what matters, understand variation, and don’t confuse managerial confidence with operational truth.