Repeatedly curing a system that can cure itself will eventually create a system that can't. - Gerald M. Weinberg

Or, suppose you want to motivate your managers to ship products on time, so you conspicuously promote each manager whose product goes out the door on schedule. All goes as planned until the situation arises in which one of your managers has a project where the testers are reporting numerous problems. Because managers who have shipped products on time have been promoted, this manager thinks, I want that promotion so I need to ship this on time, but those bug reports are getting in the way. I know what I'll do! I'll put the testers on another project until the developers have a chance to catch up.

human interactions are never narrow, never straight, and hardly ever in the directions shown an organization charts. Many serious mistakes have been made in imagining that formal structure was the only structure in an organization.

problem-solving leaders have one thing in common: a faith that there's always a better way.