Kaizen: Creating a Culture of Continuous Improvement

What is Kaizen? Kaizen is a Japanese word that is formed from two characters – “kai” and “zen.” It translates literally to mean “good change” or, we might say, “improvement,” or a change for the better.

The word Kaizen is usually used in the context of continuous improvement; it’s a big part of the Lean management system and of the Toyota Production System. Kaizen is both a methodology and a philosophy.

Part of that philosophy is the idea that everyone should be involved in improvement everywhere and every day. This is something we learned from Masaaki Imai, who wrote the seminal book Kaizen about 25 years ago and is still active today.

Think about the problems that fester when people aren't engaged. Think about the waste and harm that's caused when leaders don't listen to their employees. The financial and human costs are enormous and we have to do better.

The Kaizen approach to employee engagement, participation, and improvement is not isolated to Japanese companies nor just to manufacturing. It's an approach being used in hospitals and health systems around the world.

Two quick points:

• Not all Japanese companies practice Kaizen (and not all companies that practice Kaizen are Japanese)
• Kaizen is not a suggestion box system (see my video on this)

Kaizen is something everybody can adopt. I've seen it work well in factories, medical clinics, hospitals, coffee shops, and non profits.

Below is a short video I made for KaiNexus that introduces Kaizen, including how it's different than suggestion boxes, and a bit about the experimental process that we go through to test changes to see if they are really improvements.

I'm passionate about the Kaizen approach because it creates a better workplace, more engaged and happier employees (and leaders), and it leads to better results for patients (customers) and the organization. It's win/win/win.

The steps of Kaizen are deceptively simple:

1. Identify opportunities for improvement
2. Discuss them within a team and/or with a supervisor
3. Test and implement the idea, evaluating its impact
4. Document what was done
5. Share what was done and recognize people

Here are some examples of improvements that were made and documented in a Kaizen process. Generally, we're looking for a large number of small, low-risk, low-cost improvements (like this example of Kaizen at a wine bar that I wrote about in a previous LinkedIn piece). Occasionally, a small idea has a surprisingly big impact.

If you'd like to learn more about Kaizen, here are some books and resources beyond Imai's book:

The Idea Generator: Quick and Easy Kaizen (Norman Bodek)

The Spirit of Kaizen (Robert Maurer, PhD)

Creating a Kaizen Culture (Jon Miller)

"Kaizen: A Method of Process Improvement in the Emergency Department" (an article by Dr. Greg Jacobson, et. al.)

"Putting the ‘Continuous’ Back into Health Care Improvement" (article by me and Dr. Jacobson)

You can also download the first chapters of my two books on Kaizen, as an introduction for those of you in healthcare.

The principles of Kaizen are simple. The challenge is changing mindsets (especially of leaders) and creating a culture of continuous improvement.

What are the challenges or barriers you face that get in the way of engaging everybody in improvement, every day? What are you or your leaders doing that helps?

Mark Graban (@MarkGraban) is a consultant, author, and speaker in the “Lean healthcare” methodology. Mark is author of the Shingo Award-winning books Lean Hospitals and Healthcare Kaizen. His latest, The Executive Guide to Healthcare Kaizen is now available. He is also the VP of customer success for the technology company KaiNexus. Mark blogs most weekdays at www.LeanBlog.org. He is also helping organize a "Lean healthcare" study tour to Japan in November.

(photo purchased from iStockphoto.com)