Kaizen Mindset: Key Principles of Continuous Improvement

Many business leaders envision lean initiatives as massive endeavors that require long training sessions, big meetings, and complete overhauls. Yet the reality is that some of the most successful lean initiatives begin with a commitment to creating a culture that’s focused on small, continuous improvements. It’s the only way to achieve the long term company goal. Continuous improvement refers to constant improvements of products, processes and services over time, with the goal of improving product performance, customer service and workplace productivity. You have to be aware that there is always room for improvement, there is always a way to do it better.

In business, continuous improvement especially refers to focusing on activities that add value, and reducing everything else (the so called waste). Value added activities are those things that customers are willing to pay for, while everything else is a waste. And all waste should be eliminated (deleted, delegated), simplified (automated, reduced) or integrated (merged) by the Kaizen mindset.

Kaizen is the Japanese word for a “good change” (Kai = change, Zen = good). It means continuous improvement of all company functions, at every hierarchical level, from CEO to the least paid employees. It doesn’t matter if the change happens one time or is constant, big or small, as long as it is a change for the better.

Kaizen is a philosophy of continuous improvement in which every aspect of the business can and must be improved. It is a process that engages the “human element,” while eliminating all forms of non-value added activity and waste. Your workers’ talents and perspective are your company’s most important assets. Through Kaizen, it’s possible to harness your team’s collective focus and systematically improve all areas of your business – from individual steps in the manufacturing process to behind-the-scenes administrative work.

When you implement Kaizen you:

• Focus on standardizing your current work processes, and then developing incremental improvements on them over time
• Create a culture of problem solving employees who are constantly on the lookout for waste, inefficiencies, and opportunities for change
• Empower managers and employees at all levels of the organization to contribute their ideas on a regular bases
• Set a new standard where the expectation is that the company’s operations get a little better each day

Ensuring your Kaizen is successful requires groundwork.  It begins by evaluating and understanding the current situation. Envisioning a project with a start and end date is easy; it’s how most companies operate. Make sure the process owner or sponsor is involved and in full agreement with the process improvement activity.  Also, make sure the employees understand the goal of the improvement is to “work smarter, not harder.”  Solicit their input and suggestions on how to make the process better. Getting everyone involved and in agreement that the process can be improved will help make your Kaizen event a success.

Follow these key Kaizen principles for success:

• Continually improve.
• No idea is too small.
• Identify, report and solve individual problems.
• Focus change on common sense, low-cost and low-risk improvements, not major innovations.
• Collect, verify and analyze data to enact change.
• Problems in the process are a major source of quality defects.
• Decreasing variability in the process is vital to improving quality.
• Identify and decrease non-value-added steps.
• Every interaction is between a customer and a supplier.
• Empower the worker to enact change.
• All ideas are addressed and responded to in some way.
• Decrease waste.
• Address the workplace with good housekeeping discipline.

The result of Kaizen should be a better workplace, a safer environment, elimination of hard work, teaching people how to scientifically innovate and test new ideas, reducing waste, increasing productivity, optimizing the supply chain and sales channels, and so on.

You can always do it better, make it better, and improve it, even if things are not broken. In Kaizen, problems are seen as opportunities to improve.

Lean Quote: Managers are the Lynchpin in the Success of Change

On Fridays I will post a Lean related Quote. Throughout our lifetimes many people touch our lives and leave us with words of wisdom. These can both be a source of new learning and also a point to pause and reflect upon lessons we have learned. Within Lean active learning is an important aspect on this journey because without learning we can not improve.

"Management’s job is not to promote satisfaction with the way things are but to create dissatisfaction with the way things are and could be." — Edward M. Baker

Being responsible to generate results is one thing; knowing how to make the results more sustainable, profitable and multifaceted is another.   The new workplace requires everyone to lead and/or coordinate change in some shape or form – but very few have been formally trained to assure that it is effectively implemented.   Managers and supervisors are a lynchpin in the success of a change initiative. 

Employees look to their supervisors not only for direct communication messages about a change, but also to evaluate their level of support for the change effort. If a manager only passively supports or even resists a change, then you can expect the same from that person's direct reports. Managers and supervisors need to demonstrate their support in active and observable ways. The key is this: managers and supervisors must first be onboard with a change before they can support their employees. A change management team should create targeted and customized tactics for engaging and managing the change first with managers and supervisors, and only then charge this important group with leading change with their direct reports.

The role of the manager involves supporting employees through the process of change they experience when projects and initiatives impact their day-to-day work. The Prosci ADKAR Model describes this individual change process as five building blocks of successful change:

Awareness – making those who going to experience the change aware of what will be occurring, why, and how it is relevant to them (WIIFM)

Desire – galvanizing change targets to welcome, want and embrace the change

Knowledge – giving those experiencing change the information which enables them to enact the change

Ability – similar to knowledge, this gives those enacting the change the capability to put it into practice

Reinforcement – reiterating the rationale for change, celebrating successes, addressing weaknesses before they become a disease which cripples the embedding of change.

Help your employees understand the need for the change in the organization by discussing problems with the current system and soliciting advice in making the change successful. Present the big picture, by outlining the organization’s goals and illustrating how the change will help achieve them. Then break down the benefits as they apply directly to the employees.

Don’t expect your employees to adjust to the change right away. Help existing employees adapt to the change faster, and make sure new employees understand it right away by keeping material within the organization up-to-date. Remember that being flexible and collaborative will help you perfect the change even if you take a slightly different route to your goal.

 

Operational Discipline Leads to Operational Excellence

Linking your lean journey toward striving for operational excellence should be one of the organization’s key goals.  Operational discipline is the foundation for improving performance and achieving operational excellence. When done right, it can take years to develop and engrain into the company’s culture.

Operational discipline provides an organized way to accomplish tasks and implement operational changes through a fundamental set of procedures that are specific to a business’s unique products or service offerings. Operational Discipline is built on 1) knowing what the right thing to do is 2) being willing to always do the right thing and 3) ensuring others always do the right thing. Simply put, operational discipline means complying with a set of well-thought-out and well-defined processes, and consistently executing them correctly.

Companies with high organizational discipline are more competitive and leaders in their markets. Organizational discipline is performing business processes in a standard, repetitive fashion at a high level. Even when excellent systems are in place, degradation of system use occurs because of turnover and performing work outside the system. Continuous improvement of processes is also a key to organizational discipline.

Continuous improvement is a key to achieving high levels of organizational discipline because the whole organization is focused on performance and improvement of standardized business processes. Operational discipline improves the execution and performance of the work practices across an organization to a point where leaders and employees consistently and continuously address the day-to-day operational needs of the business in a timely, safe and efficient manner.

When companies employ operational discipline as a means of providing more predictability across their organizations, certain tasks reach higher levels of efficiency, contributing to fewer mistakes and better quality. As a result, time and opportunities open up for everyone to focus on elevating performance and results. There is a ripple effect of benefits, each having the power to unleash rapid and continuous improvement, as well as waves of innovation.

Getting an entire organization to excel at it isn’t easy, but as leaders show a commitment to achieving operational discipline, employees take up the challenge and deliver increasing levels of interdependence, innovation and sustainable growth.

The Importance of Establishing a Shared Vision

In almost any situation there are leaders and there are followers. Both positions are equally important, but to be a leader who makes a difference, you need to be able to see the bigger picture in whatever you’re doing.

Whether you’re just earning a living, doing the best at your job or trying to leave an imprint on the world, there is huge value in seeing the big picture. But seeing the big picture sometimes isn’t enough. True leadership must have a combination of seeing that big picture and also helping others to see it as well.

The following story illustrates this idea:

One day a traveler, walking along a lane, came across 3 stonecutters working in a quarry. Each was busy cutting a block of stone. Interested to find out what they were working on, he asked the first stonecutter what he was doing.

"I am cutting a stone!" Still no wiser the traveler turned to the second stonecutter and asked him what he was doing.

“I am cutting this block of stone to make sure that it’s square, and its dimensions are uniform, so that it will fit exactly in its place in a wall."

A bit closer to finding out what the stonecutters were working on but still unclear, the traveler turned to the third stonecutter. He seemed to be the happiest of the three and when asked what he was doing replied:

“I am building a cathedral.”

All three stonecutters were doing the same thing, but each gave a very different answer. Each knew how to do his job but what was it that set the third stonecutter apart? Perhaps:

Knowing not just how and what to do, but knowing why.

Viewing the whole and not just its parts.

Seeing a vision, a sense of the bigger picture.

Having the ability to see significance in work, beyond the obvious.

Understanding that a legacy will live on, whether in the stone of a cathedral, or in the impact made on other people.

As Peter Senge put it: the responsibility of a leader is not just to share a vision but to build a shared vision.

The traditional approach to creating a vision for the organization has largely failed in most organizations because employees have been unable to connect with the vision developed by management. Building shared vision requires daily effort by managers. It must be a central part of their work.

Shared vision is an essential component of a learning organization because it provides the focus and energy for learning. The underlying force is the desire by people to create and accomplish something.

Lean Quote: Practice Good Stress Management Techniques

On Fridays I will post a Lean related Quote. Throughout our lifetimes many people touch our lives and leave us with words of wisdom. These can both be a source of new learning and also a point to pause and reflect upon lessons we have learned. Within Lean active learning is an important aspect on this journey because without learning we can not improve.

"I’ve tried to relaxing, but – I don’t know – I feel more comfortable tense." — Caption for Hamilton Cartoon

Adjusting to new circumstances is a drain on your psychological energy. Even if the changes don’t require more physical effort, there’s always more emotional labor involved. When the changes hit too fast, too hard, or go on too long, you suffer emotional fatigue. Or to put it in everyday language – you hit burnout.

So it makes sense now for you to work on managing your personal stress load. Keeping your sense of humor and controlling your attitude are steps in the right direction, but you also need to take care of yourself physically.

Vigorous activity offers tension release and helps you healthy. Good exercise makes you feel better mentally as well as physically. You might run, swim, jump rope, walk, do aerobics, or work out at a health club. Any kind of regular, sustained exercise will do, assuming you don’t have any special health problems.

Bookstores and your local library also have books or cassette tapes on relaxation training and stress management.

Finally, don’t believe a lot of the gossip you hear. The rumor mill churns out all kinds of stories about disturbing events that will never come to pass. You can waste mental energy worrying about things everyone is talking about, but that have no basis in fact. As Mary Crowley said, “Worry is misuse of the imagination.” Instead of fretting about what might go wrong, invest your imagination in doing your job well.

 

Why We Celebrate Memorial Day

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, nearly one in four seniors is a veteran. This fact is a testament to the dedication and bravery of older generations, and also a reminder of how tumultuous the last century was.

The destructive wars of the century may have faded from America’s collective consciousness, but those who were there, and those who lost a friend or family member, will never forget.


Nearly one-million brave servicemen and women died defending the United States during our nation’s history. Memorial Day is an opportunity to honor these Americans who made the ultimate sacrifice. It means that, as long as there is a U.S., they will never be forgotten.

This weekend our cities will be decorated in bunting and the American flag will be flying along downtown streets all across America. There will be memorial ceremonies held at National Cemeteries, and small local cemeteries, where veterans are buried beneath broad, manicured grounds marked with long, regimented rows of white marker stones.

It is not wars that we are remembering with this national holiday. Rather, we are remembering those who served and those who gave their last full measure of devotion in order to insure that the freedoms that this country offers to all would be able to be passed on to the next generations. We remember them because they tell us something of our human dignity. They remind us of the cost of freedom and of the quality of our character as a nation. We do not gather on this holiday to glorify wars. Rather, we are challenged to remember that when war comes unbidden to us, there are those who are willing to give their all to defend this nation. Deep down we want to remember in the hope that we will find ways to prevent wars and never again have to fight them again. There is, among veterans, no more hoped for desire than the desire that their own sons and daughters will never have to suffer the terrors of war, or the effects of war.


All veterans hope and pray that their war will be the last war.

Lean Quote: Invent the Future Instead of Trying to Redesign the Past

On Fridays I will post a Lean related Quote. Throughout our lifetimes many people touch our lives and leave us with words of wisdom. These can both be a source of new learning and also a point to pause and reflect upon lessons we have learned. Within Lean active learning is an important aspect on this journey because without learning we can not improve.

"The trouble with the future is that it usually arrives before we're ready for it." — Arnold H Glasow

The best way to predict the future is to invent it. This suggests that the best way to know what's coming is to put yourself in charge of creating the situation you want.

Be purposeful. Look at what's needed now, and set about doing it. Action works like a powerful drug to relieve feelings of fear, helplessness, anger, uncertainty, or depression. Mobilize yourself, because you will be the primary architect of your future.

One of the keys to being successful in your efforts is to anticipate. Accept the past, focus on the future, and anticipate. Consider what's coming, what needs to happen, and how you can rise to the occasion. 

Stay loose. Remain flexible. Be light on your feet. Instead of changing with the times, make a habit of changing just a little ahead of the times.