You Deserve What You Tolerate: Quote Origin and Leadership Meaning

“You deserve what you tolerate” is often used to describe leadership responsibility: when leaders allow unsafe conditions or broken processes to continue, those conditions affect the results. But the word “deserve” needs care. Nobody deserves to be harmed by a mistake, and the phrase should not become an excuse for blaming employees.

I shared the longer expression, “You get what you expect and deserve what you tolerate,” in Lean Hospitals. I learned it from a Lean coach during my time at Johnson & Johnson. I did not create it, and I cannot verify its original author.

Who said “you deserve what you tolerate”?

In July 2013, Tariq Trotter, also known as Black Thought of The Roots, tweeted the phrase with attribution to me. I appreciate the mention, but that attribution is not quite right: I was passing along something I had learned.

You get what you expect and you deserve what you tolerate. -Mark Graban

— Black Thought (@blackthought) July 5, 2013

Here is the screenshot, in case the original tweet becomes unavailable:

In a 2017 comment below, Charlie Protzman said he introduced the phrase into J&J through his Lean seminars and consulting. He recalled encountering it in a Reader's Digest article from the 1970s, but did not identify the article or its author. The 1970s date refers to that recollection, not to the dates of his J&J seminars.

Karen Martin also pointed out similar wording used by Dr. Phil. Those references help explain how the expression has circulated. They do not establish who said it first. If you quote it, I would avoid claiming that I am its original author.

What does the quote mean for leaders?

The useful question is what a leader can do about a problem that keeps recurring. Expecting employees to follow a procedure is reasonable. So is asking whether they have the supplies, time, training, and support to follow it.

In Lean Hospitals, I connected the phrase to standardized work: leaders need to go and see how work is actually done and help address the gap between the agreed process and everyday practice. Looking only at the written procedure tells us little about whether it is workable.

If supplies are missing, help fix that. If the workload makes the agreed method impractical, investigate with the people doing the work. Repeating “I expect you to follow the process” does not remove either barrier.

Think about an assembly line: expecting a complete vehicle is not enough. The work has to be designed so people can build it correctly and raise a problem when they cannot. The same question applies in a hospital, although the work and risks differ: what makes the right action possible, and what happens when someone needs help?

High expectations need a way to act on problems

Imagine a hospital where a preventable injury is dismissed because the hospital performs better than average. That comparison might be statistically accurate, but it does not tell the team why this patient was harmed or what could prevent a recurrence.

A more useful response is to examine what happened with the staff involved, identify contributing conditions, and test a change. Leaders can expect improvement while acknowledging that some risks and causes are not yet understood. That is different from promising that a demand for perfection will eliminate harm.

I have written about the medication error involving Dennis Quaid's twins. A statement that a procedure was not followed should start an investigation, not end it. We still need to understand how the error became possible and why the safeguards did not prevent it. We should not assume, without evidence, what a particular executive knew.

Consider a simpler example. A leader sees water on a hallway floor. Making the area safe addresses the immediate risk. Asking why the water is there, who can respond, and whether this has happened before helps address recurrence. Walking past it leaves the risk in place. Nobody who subsequently slips deserves that injury.

Likewise, a rounding checklist with missing entries deserves investigation. Was the care missed, was the documentation missed, or is something else happening? The leader needs to find out rather than infer everything from a blank box.

Accountability without blame

I would use this phrase cautiously, especially with someone who has little authority to change the conditions around them. A frontline employee cannot necessarily fix staffing, purchasing, or an unrealistic workload. A senior leader cannot reasonably hand those problems back with “you deserve what you tolerate.”

People still have responsibilities. They can raise concerns, follow an agreed method when it is feasible, and participate in improving it. Leaders have responsibilities for responding, providing resources, and examining their own decisions. Accountability requires more than finding someone to blame.

When a problem repeats, try asking: What did we already know? What prevented action? Who has the authority to help? What will we change, and when will we check whether it helped? Those questions make responsibility more specific than the slogan does.

It also matters whether people can safely tell you that a standard is not working. Psychological safety and speaking up help leaders learn about the conditions they would otherwise miss. Responding constructively gives people a reason to raise the next concern.

Explore how leaders respond to mistakes

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