The meaning of Kaizen : Forcing yourself to improve

Kaizen – a Japanese word that normally is associated with Continuous Improvement. But that is just one part of the story. As so many other Japanese words and especially words connected to the Toyota Production System (TPS) there is a deeper meaning. In fact the godfather behind TPS (as he is sometimes referred to) Taichii Ohno is known to play with words. Giving them more than one meaning.

改善 is the kanji used to describe Kaizen. Kaizen is achieved by holding yourself accountable and accept that there will be struggles an frustrations along the way.

So what does that actually mean? Well, it means of course that you have to take responsibility for your actions and accept that you will have to struggle and that you sometimes will fail. This is the whole essence in Kaizen and the supporting methodology of PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act): Fail often and fail small. In this lies the idea of failing makes you wiser and from the learning you will devise a new experiment and try again. If you do that often that will mean that you will try out your experiment on a small scale and as such not jeopardize anything big.

The deeper meaning of Kaizen

So there is a deeper meaning of the concept of Kaizen. The first Kanji 改 means “change” and the second Kanji 善 means “good”. The main idea in Kaizen is therefore to change things for the good. To make them better today than they were yesterday. Kaizen is something that we should do each and every day not as some planned event.

The Kanji for “change” is made of two characters meaning “self” and “whip”. So to really create the changes that we want we have to whip ourselves . That means we must have the self discipline to see changes through and create improvements.

Importance of accountability in Kaizen

So now we are really seeing the meaning of accountability: we have to whip ourselves to keep the discipline of following the change through to the end. We have to whip ourselves to keep following the circle of PDCA, experimenting and keep on doing it until we find a countermeasure and finally a solution. That means whipping ourselves even if we fail – especially if we fail. We just have to keep on doing it and improving the current situation. But it doesn’t stop there. No, the “Zen” means searching for perfection – obtaining the balance of life so in other words we have to whip ourselves to create improvements (“good”) until we reach perfection.

Conclusion

That is something entirely different from the original “Continuous improvement” to the “Self disciplined obtainment of perfection”. And this is why Kaizen is not an event or something planned. It is the one thing that we should be doing each and every day to make the work place a better place to be in and to work in.

This article should have given you an idea about what Kaizen really is and why it is important to do Kaizen every day.

You may also read my previous article on 7+1 wastes: How to spot waste and get rid of it

About the Author

Erik T Hansen is a B.Sc.Eng production (hons) and holds a diploma in Supply Chain Management. He has been working in the field of Lean and Continuous Improvement some 20+ years. He has been working in a number of CI positions in a variety of industries. His main areas of interest are Lean leadership, Lean thinking and Lean manufacturing.