The truism, “Quality, cost, and speed—pick two,” was often quoted throughout my career: meaning a production company could not achieve all three ideals and therefore must choose which two out of three ideals to concentrate on;
• Sacrifice quality with low cost and high speed
• Sacrifice cost with high quality and high speed
• Sacrifice speed with high quality and low cost

Does there always have to be a loser? Unfortunately, it seems to work out that way in practice.

On July 27, 2011, a special committee of Johnson & Johnson (J&J) board members issued a report in response to investor lawsuits. It cited “an adversarial relationship” between quality and production, and “an emphasis on production volume” over compliance. The committee concluded that the consumer division at J&J “should have paid more attention” to quality issues and “exercised more management oversight.”

But here’s the real kick in the pants: The members of this J&J blue-ribbon committee were quick to take themselves off the hook by saying (I’m paraphrasing): “Nobody on the J&J board told McNeil that quality should be sacrificed.”

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