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
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Interesting. One can use this philosophy for personal development also.