The Kaizen Principle

Day 267 / 365

The Kaizen principle is a way of increasing the productivity and efficiency of business processes that originated in Japan. Simply stated, the Kaizen philosophy states that small improvements made continuously for a long period of time will lead to drastic changes. This philosophy is the reason why initially the Japanese companies performed way better than there American counterparts.

What makes Kaizen different is that it focuses on finding the root cause of a problem and solving it. Mistakes are seen as opportunities to improve, so they are documented and shared, not ignored or hidden. Kaizen also tries to find ways to fix the processes instead of human resources.

Then there is the incremental aspect of it. Instead of trying to solve a big problem all at once, Kaizen suggests doing small continuous changes to improve the situation, little by little.

Another important aspect is that under this philosophy, the employees are encouraged to suggest and vote on the actions to be taken to deal with a problem. If the employees come up with a solution themselves, they will be more likely to adopt it as well.

The key to Kaizen is patience. It aims to solve problems on a long term scale. So if you are looking for immediate solutions, then Kaizen is not for you.

This post is part of my 365 Day Project for 2019. Read about it here

Yesterday’s blog — A mini end-of-the-year resolution