How to kaizen – continuous small improvements

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Marc L. Goldberg

The Japanese word “kaizen” means change for the better with an emphasis on continuous improvement. Who couldn’t want that? If you have a happy customer today, wouldn’t you want an even happier customer tomorrow who will buy more and tell more people to patronize your business and buy?

The improvement does not need to be significant. It may be a very small step, but it makes a difference. In recent history, the concept has been adopted and improved by Toyota. In Japan, kaizen generally refers to small steps of improvement, but in the United States the concept has been adopted to mean driven by continuous improvement.

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Kaizen is a daily process and therefore goes beyond a simple productivity improvement process. When undertaken appropriately, it teaches people to perform experiments on their work to locate and eliminate waste.

As a concept, it humanizes work by adopting policies and procedures that nurture workers with praise, encouragement and active engagement in all company activities. This process is not left to “workers” alone, but includes all levels of the organization, from ownership to the lowest team member.

The format of kaizen can be individual, a suggestion system, or a small or large group. It can also be cross-functional within an organization.

What has been found in large organizations that have adopted the concept are small improvements and standardized results in terms of improved productivity. Overall, the biggest difference is that, compared to “command and control” management philosophies, it focuses on organizational inclusiveness.

There are five basic principles of kaizen. Know your customer (also a teaching of Sun Tsu), let it flow, empower people, and be transparent. The fundamentals are supported by three pillars: Housekeeping, Waste Disposal and Standardization.

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Know your customer. One of the first elements of the Business Model Canvas (www.strategyzer.com) after defining your value proposition is identifying your customer segments. Who is your customer? What defines them? What are their needs, wants and desires (that you can satisfy)? Where they are and how you can reach them are all part of the know-your-customer process. Know what they’re buying, why they’re buying it, and what differentiators are important to them. These questions are part of kaizen since any improvement in organizational performance is customer-centric.

DevelopGoodHabits.com recommends the following which can be applied to small businesses:

Be proactive. Don’t wait for something negative to happen. Plan ahead how you can become more efficient and productive, then take action. But don’t stop. Keep the momentum that keeps you going.

Practice the five Ws, but focus first and foremost on the “Why”. Understanding why a process is done the way it is currently done will help you imagine what it might be like to become more productive. Empower the team to speak up and make decisions on their own that will improve working conditions. Identifying problems, taking ownership and taking corrective action quickly keeps the wolf out of the door and provides a sense of ownership when action is taken quickly to correct problems.

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Evaluate all processes and procedures. Chase out old ones that are no longer productive and replace them with new ones created by worker teams.

A “culture of yes”: Once your concepts are ingrained in the workforce, foster a “yes culture” where everyone approaches their work with a win-win attitude and team members are empowered to make small changes every day that lead to more significant changes.

Part of the organizational culture should be “continuous improvement”. This is the only way changes happen positively. Change can be dictated, but for it to take root and seep into all organizations, it needs to be built into the culture when someone takes on any of their work assignments, they ask, “ how can this process be improved?

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Michaela Herlihy, owner of Beacon Financial Planning in Hyannis, said the company uses the kaizen concept by holding annual strategic business planning meetings with all team members involved. During this meeting, they celebrate their previous wins and look for places where they can improve and add value to their clients’ lives.

“Beacon has a culture of coaching and celebrating wins along the way, but also supporting each other and making room for each of us to be human,” Herlihy said. Each team member has access to a life coach, Laurie McAnaugh, for 1.5 confidential hours each month to work on whatever they need, whether personal or professional.

Beth Marcus, co-owner of Cape Cod Beer in Hyannis, said one of the ways they strive to constantly improve their retail operations at the brewery is to go back and do a weekly review, every week before you start talking about the week ahead.

This means that at their weekly retail events and marketing meetings, they’ve been talking every day since the team’s last meeting, dissecting each day’s events and talking about the “good, the bad, and the ugly.” and how we could have improved the outcome if through efficiency and/or planning, Marcus said.

She said the goal was to improve the customer (or staff) experience and maximize possible results.

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At first, some new staff feel like the conversation is about ‘being critical’ or ‘taking it out’, but eventually everyone learns that it’s part of the process of constant improvement, and this often makes their job easier. “We believe that learning from our mistakes and our successes is an important part of our daily lives,” Marcus said.

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