While Kaizen
and continuous improvement approaches have proven to be highly effective in
enhancing productivity and fostering a culture of innovation, some companies
may struggle to adopt these practices due to several reasons. If your failing
to create a kaizen culture here are some questions that you can ask to help
diagnose the problem so that Kaizen will create the impact you are looking for.
1.
Who
are we asking to participate in kaizens?
Correct answer:
“Everybody all the time!”
The more people
you engage in Kaizen, the greater your impact will be. It’s simple, really -
one person improving one thing each week has an impact of, well, one
improvement per week. 500 people each improving one thing per week has a
comparably huge impact. Sure, you can’t just straight from one person to 500
people, but definitely make sure you’re aligning your efforts to move in that
direction. Kaizen is a competitive strategy in which all employees work
together to create a strong culture of constant improvement. Employee
engagement matters a great deal in Kaizen.
2.
How
often does leadership talk about Kaizen?
Correct answer:
“Every chance they get.”
Kaizen involves
everyone in continuous improvement to find a better way of doing things. Top
management has the most important role in implementing kaizen and that is
commitment. When management demonstrates a long-term commitment to continuous
improvement employees personally develop a kaizen mindset. Managers and
executives should be encouraged to find ways to improve their processes as
well.
Leadership that
really buys into Kaizen and works to promote a culture of continuous
improvement talks about Kaizen every chance they get. When they’re meeting with
their staff and someone has a complaint, they suggest capturing that
opportunity for improvement. Great Kaizen leaders drive the cultural
transformation by emphasizing the value of Kaizen to the organization. They get
more engagement, more improvements, and a greater impact.
3.
How
do you capture opportunities for improvement?
Wrong answer: ““A
suggestion box.”
Many
organizations want to harness the ideas for improvement that naturally exist in
their employees. Suggestion boxes are a common, but ineffective, way to engage
employees in continuous improvement. They’re usually implemented with the best
of intentions by managers who genuinely want to hear their employees’
improvement ideas, but the boxes fail to produce the desired engagement. Most
of the reasons suggestion boxes, or any idea collection process, do not work
effectively come down to a combination of process, culture and communication
related issues.
Suggestion
boxes are a bad way to approach a great concept, and the desire to engage
employees in continuous improvement shouldn’t be abandoned because that method
failed. Instead, I’d encourage you to look into real employee engagement.
4.
How
long is the turnaround time between when an idea is submitted and when a
manager approves it?”
Correct answer:
“Same day, when possible.”
If there’s too
great of a time lag between when employees capture opportunities for
improvement and when their managers give them the “go ahead” to work on them,
momentum will be lost and less improvement will be made. Failure to follow
through on these can undermine the team's efforts. It is also necessary to ensure the
improvements that are made are maintained to prevent backsliding.
5.
What
kind of improvement ideas are looking for?
Correct answer:
“Small. Low-cost. Low-risk. Daily. Continuous.”
If you’re
asking people to give you big, high impact ideas and devaluing daily continuous
improvement, you’re taking the wrong approach to a Kaizen culture. The size or
amount you will tackle within the kaizen is important for getting things
done. If the scope is too large you run
the problem of never implementing an improvement. Kaizen is all about daily
continuous improvements… asking for these will result in capturing and
implementing more ideas, with a much bigger overall impact than limiting the
query to groundbreaking ideas.
6.
Are
you sharing the improvements you’re making?
Correct answer:
“Absolutely!”
As long as
you’re sharing improvements in some way, you’re on the right track. That is,
assuming that your sharing method does the following -
- Share every improvement with the right people
- Not take up very much of your precious time
- Not overwhelm people with too much information
- Keep all improvements accessible to anyone
who is interested
- Connect all employees around improvement
Sharing
improvements is important because it allows the impact of each to spread beyond
its initial scope, gets more people engaged in continuous improvement,
recognizes employees who are doing great work, and promotes knowledge sharing.
7.
What
rewards and recognition do you offer?
Correct answer:
“Recognition in meetings and sharing success.”
Offering
financial rewards for Kaizen is a common pitfall. Giving any type of financial
reward actually results in a decreased number of improvements captured and
implemented because:
- The reward structure only promotes
improvements with a financial return.
- People want credit for their ideas so that
they get the money, so they don’t collaborate.
- The focus becomes on getting money, not on
improving the organization
- Improvements in areas like safety, quality,
and satisfaction are undervalued
Kaizen is about
the behavior of finding and solving problems, not the result or outcome of
doing so. Therefore, you should reward and recognize the behavior, not the
result or outcome, of the Kaizen. This way, you can reinforce the desired
behaviors and process that drive continuous improvement and encourage your team
members to keep looking for opportunities to improve, such as asking questions,
generating ideas, testing solutions, and evaluating results.
Successful
kaizen efforts can result in benefits such as increased productivity, improved
quality, better safety, lower costs, and improved customer satisfaction. Kaizen
can also lead to benefits in a company’s culture, including improved
communication among employees, improved morale and employee satisfaction, and
an increased sense of ownership in the company among employees.
.jpg)