“If you always do what you always did, you’ll always have what you always had.” – Albert Einstein
A reference to change management can be the trigger of numerous negative responses, often based on past or current experiences of it being doing badly or too often.
Mention Kaizen however, and you tend to get curiosity and intrigue – a far healthier internal reaction.
Kaizen is almost a productivity philosophy, and it means continuous, incremental improvement. Many associate Kaizen with Toyota, who adopted Kaizen as one of its core business principles. It’s been said that the concept is advocated so much there that they’ve created an expectation for any worker on their assembly lines to stop the line at any time if they see an error, a problem or a better way of doing things.
The essence of Kaizen is slow, small steps. Embracing a Kaizen approach gives a sense of ownership, accountability, commitment and the bigger picture perspective. It also promotes a culture that is proactive in looking for and fixing any issues so that work is rewarded for its quality and not quantity.
What could stop us using Kaizen principles?
- Time – we’re too busy to change how we’re currently doing things
- Habits – it’s easier to operate through our current embedded habits
- Blind spots – it’s often hard to see where improvement can occur
- Pride – it can be tough to admit that how you’ve been doing things isn’t the best way
An apple a day……
Four tips on how you can implement a Kaizen approach:
- Build in regular space to get together as a team and have a ‘Kaizen chat.’ Ask exploratory questions of each other’s role to identify where improvement can be made – how productivity, safety, or customer loyalty could be increased for example. This needs to be done frequently to start the habit of looking for Kaizen opportunities.
- Ensure you are debriefing after every major project or initiative – it’s wasted opportunity if you’re not, yet I’m often surprised at how many of my clients admit that they don’t do this. Jim Collins talks about “In the face of disruption, great companies change 20% (not more as may be expected) of their recipe in response to changing conditions. The critical question is what’s the right 20% and why?” Consistent debriefs will help you accurately identify that 20%.
- Develop a Kaizen mindset. An ex-colleague of mine used to love timing himself in the mornings to see if he could shed a minute or two off his morning routine and get out of the house faster than the previous day. It was a game he played that got him into the performance improvement mindset before he’s even hit the office.
- Kaizen isn’t just for work. For any area in your life that needs improving, introduce actions or changes that you can implement incrementally. Do one more fitness session a week, add a green smoothie to your breakfast or include a three minute mindfulness exercise before you start or end the day. Over time, these small changes make a massive difference to your wellbeing.
A Kaizen culture embraces rather than fears change, and the calm and consistent approach is a refreshing tempo to our otherwise hectic world.