Sigma Quotes & Sayings

What builds character? It's a commitment to integrity, hard work, honor and keeping your word. All of that comes straight out of the Sigma Nu Creed. The guy who wrote that meant it. The whole idea is to think about those words and make them a part of who you are. — Bill Courtney

With Lean Six Sigma, the tools are the easy part, changing organizational culture is the hard part. — John Novak

You have to be honest, have integrity, be able to cooperate and get along with other people. Sigma Chi is a great place to learn that and that's why it's a great thing to join this fraternity. — Jim Palmer

All right," he said. "Since you asked, Webmind is an emergent quantum-computational system based on a stable null-sigma condensate that resists decoherence thanks to constructive feedback loops." He turned to the blackboard, scooped up a piece of chalk, and began writing rapidly. "See," he said, "using Dirac notation, if we let Webmind's default conscious state be represented by a bra of phi and a ket of psi, then this would be the einselected basis." His chalk flew across the board again. "Now, we can get the vector basis of the total combined Webmind alpha-state consciousness ... — Robert J. Sawyer

Control your own Destiny or somebody else will — Jack Welch

If you want engagement, you must engage. — Karen Martin

Chaos is the enemy of any organization the strives to be outstanding. — Karen Martin

When I became a Sigma Chi it was great, because they were the pople I enjoyed being with and I was very proud of the association. It was kind of an instant confidence builder for me
that what I considered the best fraternity on campus had actually wanted me. And I had always been very shy and without a lot of confidence. So it was a really good social experience and for me it was also a social maturation. It was a great benefit. — David Letterman

Among other things, I use a Samsung mobile phone, a very bad quality video camera, and an old Olympus with extremely bad Sigma lenses. — Alison Jackson

Six Sigma is a quality program that, when all is said and done, improves your customers' experience, lowers your costs, and builds better leaders. — Jack Welch

Stated simply, an Excel spreadsheet, or more likely a proliferation of these spreadsheets, is ill-suited for the longer-term data management and analysis required by Six Sigma teams. — Thomas Pyzdek

Chaos is NOT a condition of doing business. — Karen Martin

So much has happened since the first publication of The Six Sigma Way, and it has been rewarding to find that much of what was in the book then still holds true. At the same time, the opportunity to reflect on how organizations have used, or misused, Six Sigma had offered a lot of new insights. We're pleased that this updated book will offer some real benefit to individuals and organizations still focused on driving continuous improvement today. — Peter S. Pande

It ain't always rocket science, sometimes a door is just a door. — James Rollins

When I first encountered the 'Sigma Force' novels - long before I became friends with Jim Rollins - a bookseller told me that these stories were about 'geeks with guns.' While not entirely accurate, that's pretty close to the mark, and that really speaks to me. — Jonathan Maberry

Investors should be skeptical of history-based models. Constructed by a nerdy-sounding priesthood using esoteric terms such as beta, gamma, sigma and the like, these models tend to look impressive. Too often, though, investors forget to examine the assumptions behind the models. Beware of geeks bearing formulas. — Warren Buffett

One of the things that baffles me (and there are quite a few) is how there can be so much lingering stigma with regards to mental illness, specifically bipolar disorder. In my opinion, living with manic depression takes a tremendous amount of balls. Not unlike a tour of Afghanistan (though the bombs and bullets, in this case, come from the inside). At times, being bipolar can be an all-consuming challenge, requiring a lot of stamina and even more courage, so if you're living with this illness and functioning at all, it's something to be proud of, not ashamed of.
They should issue medals along with the steady stream of medication. — Carrie Fisher

Sigma Chi was a learning experience for me in personal growth, in finding out more about myself, in shaping my life more effectively, and in directing my energies more efficiently. All of those things were heavily influenced by my Sigma Chi experience. There is no question that that has had a tremendous impact on my career, profesionally and on my life. — Merlin Olsen

Perfect is an illusion, one that was created to maintain the status quo. The Six Sigma charade is largely about hiding from change, because change is never perfect. Change means reinvention, and until something is reinvented, we have no idea what the spec is. — Seth Godin

Gray imagined Kat scolding her husband in an operatic duet that has been going on between husbands and wives for ages, that eternal mix of exasperation and love.
James Rollins — James Rollins

AUTHOR'S NOTE TO READERS: TRUTH OR FICTION Everything in this book is true, except for what's not. I thought I'd end this adventure by splitting those hairs. First, two elements gave birth to this story. I came upon each independently, but I knew there had to be a connection and that Sigma would need to investigate. — James Rollins

Charging everyone the same thing and treating everyone the same way, as retailers do today, is 'Six Sigma' thinking which is great for producing widgets on a production line, but it makes no sense in a world where customers are inherently different. — Peter Fader

Sigma Chi, more than anything else, got me involved with the people who knew how to study, and they helped me. I learned from them. The Norman Shield is still quite applicable now. — William DeVries

Kaizen should be done when times are good or when the company is profitable, since your efforts to streamline and make improvements when the company is poor are limited to reduction in staff. Even if you try to go lean and cut out the fat to improve business performance, when your business is in a very difficult position financially there is no fat to be cut. If you are cutting out muscle, which you need, then you cannot say that your efforts to become lean are succeeding.The most important thing about doing kaizen is to do kaizen when times are good, the economy is strong, and the company is profitable — Taiichi Ohno

This is like the Six Sigma approach to quality. Six Sigma refers to the quest for continuous improvement, ultimately leading to 3.4 defects per million units. The problem is that once you're heading down this road, there's no room left for amazing improvements and remarkable innovations. Either you rolled ten strikes or you didn't. Organizations that earn dramatic success always do it in markets where asymptotes don't exist, or where they can be shattered. If you could figure out how to bowl 320, that would be amazing. Until that happens, pick a different sport if you want to be a linchpin. — Seth Godin

When you are finished changing, you're finished. — Benjamin Franklin

When everything is a priority, nothing is a priority. — Karen Martin

Look, cell phone geolocation data shows very few clustering anomalies for this hour and climate. And that's holding up pretty much across all major metro areas. It's gone down six percentage points since news of the Karachi workshop hit the Web, and it's trending downward. If people are protesting, they aren't doing it in the streets." He circled his finger over a few clusters of dots. "Some potential protest knots in Portland and Austin, but defiance-related tag cloud groupings in social media put us within the three-sigma rule - meaning roughly sixty-eight percent of the values lie within one standard deviation of the mean. — Daniel Suarez