If feelings are to provide a useful guide for behavior, they must correspond to reality. Productiveness and honesty are the moral virtues upon which the concept of quality is based. Productive work is the central purpose of rational people's lives and the central value that integrates and determines the hierarchy of all of their other values. Reason is the source, the precondition of a person's productive work. Pride is the result.
Productiveness involves reshaping the world in the image of one's own values.
Honesty is the refusal to fake reality to acquire value. When managers know how to provide greater quality but fail to do so, they are being dishonest. Employees who fight to keep jobs that are no longer needed, or who fail to perform their jobs to the best of their ability, are likewise being dishonest. Potential quality is the known maximum possible value added per unit of input. Actual quality is the current value added per unit of input.