The word ‘Kaizen’ is composed of two Japanese words: ‘kai’ meaning ‘change’ and ‘zen’ meaning ‘for the better’.
In the Kaizen philosophy, innovation is seen as an incremental process; it’s not about making big leaps forward, but rather making small things better, in small ways, everywhere you can, on a daily basis. In its simplest form, think of it as “continuous improvement” and “change for the better.”
Ideas, suggestions, changes – all should be applied to even the smallest tasks. Nothing is insignificant. The Kaizen philosophy believes that it is in fact the smallest of improvements that will cumulatively push the business forward and keep it ahead of competitors that don’t care about sweating the small stuff. Kaizen philosophy says you must create a standard, make sure everyone meets the standard, ask everyone to improve the standard, and then repeat this process forever. Remember, you can always make or do things better, even if they seem to work well in a particular moment.
The Kaizen strategy requires employees at all levels of the company to work together proactively to achieve regular, incremental improvements. It’s not a top-down program – it requires the buy-in, belief, and support of all, that we can and should always be working for and towards continuous improvement.
“The message of the Kaizen strategy is that no day should go by without some kind of improvement being made somewhere in the company.”
-Masaaki Imai
“Never be so afraid of making mistakes that you stop taking actions.”
-Kirtida Gautam
“Strive for continuous improvement, instead of perfection.”
-Kim Collins
“Excellent companies don’t believe in excellence – only in constant improvement and constant change.”
-Tom Peters
“Never stop investing. Never stop improving. Never stop doing something new. Make it your goal to be better each and every day, in some small way. Remember the Japanese concept of Kaizen. Small daily improvements eventually result in huge advantages.”
-Bob Parsons
The great illusion in life and business that makes the Kaizen philosophy of incremental improvements so poorly adopted, disregarded, and overlooked, is that small things are just small things and don’t or shouldn’t matter that much [so we think]. This is objectively true, but many small things become a large thing, and it is much easier easier to tackle small things, and therefore more achievable. The time, energy, and effort – let alone the decision itself – to tackle very large issues or problems has always been a deterrent in ‘taking it on’. If you spend time continuously working on and improving the small things, by default, you will have eliminated them from morphing into the big thing.
As Robert Maurer stated, “Small actions are at the heart of Kaizen. By taking steps so tiny that they seem trivial or even laughable, you’ll sail past obstacles that have defeated you before. Slowly – but painlessly – you’ll cultivate an appetite for continued success and lay down a permanent new route to change.”
