Will Butler-Adams > Quotes

“In Japan, the go/no-go system has been extended to a whole system of practices. Anything which physically prevents a mistake from being made, or automatically creates an alert that something has gone wrong, is a poka yoke, invariably pronounced 'pokey-yokey' by British engineers. (Poka in Japanese is a mistake, and yoke is to avoid something - it is the equivalent of 'fool-proofing', but in a language that's a little more polite about calling people fools.)”
― Will Butler-Adams, The Brompton: Engineering for Change

“In many ways, a job in management is defined by the things that you have to trust others to look after. If you know everything that's going on, you're not managing anything - it's you that's doing the work.”
― Will Butler-Adams, The Brompton: Engineering for Change

“I ended up concluding that a lot of what bankers get paid for is for facing up to things that normal people find embarrassing and awkward to talk about.”
― Will Butler-Adams, The Brompton: Engineering for Change

“This is what selling is about. We tell the truth about our product to as many people as possible, in a language that they understand.”
― Will Butler-Adams, The Brompton: Engineering for Change

“Any time someone asks you what they ought to do, you don't answer the question; you try to find out why they had to ask.”
― Will Butler-Adams, The Brompton: Engineering for Change