Kaizen

The philosophy of kaizen teaches us that improvements come from gradual, consistent changes.

Kaizen is about taking actions that add value, and cutting down on waste and inefficiency.

It’s also about never making excuses! Of course, it’s not just Western philosophers who have something to say about self-discipline.

Cultures all around the world have their unique take on the issue.

In Japan, one perspective is called kaizen, where “kai” is the symbol for change, and “zen” the symbol for good.

The symbols together simply mean “change for good.” In the kaizen philosophy, the best kind of improvement is slow and steady.

Because kaizen puts such an emphasis on order, discipline, and frugality, it’s a favorite framework amongst entrepreneurs and business managers.

Its principles have been used in everything from software development to improving manufacturing processes.

But we can use the same ideas to improve our own personal self-discipline efforts.

The idea is not so much that there is some grand goal waiting on the horizon that you are rushing toward and can declare yourself finished when you reach it.

Rather, it’s a focus on process rather than outcome— what matters is continuous, incremental improvements in every aspect of a process, as a way of life.

In business lore, kaizen is about fine-tuning manufacturing, management, and logistics processes, but for our purposes, we’ll be looking at how we can use kaizen on personal goals.

The Japanese cultural spirit holds that everyone in society has a valuable role to play no matter if they are housewife or businessman, CEO or janitor—and they can function in this role with ever-increasing perfection and efficiency.

Kaizen gained popularity in post-World War II Japan when Toyota began using “quality circles” in its production line.

A quality circle consists of a group of workers who do the same work who meet regularly and discuss amongst themselves how they can solve problems and improve performance.

By the: 1950

You might recognize some of kaizen’s original concepts in the language of “lean” methodology in the West, where trainers, authors, and management consultants try to establish minimalist processes for the most economical and cost-effective outcomes.

It’s pretty common sense: the process produces the outcome, so focus on the process.

Kaizen principles are pretty common sense: 1.

Make continuous improvements to everything.

If you can do ten reps at gym, aim for eleven next time.

If you score eighty on the test, try for eighty-one next time.

2.

Get rid of outdated concepts.

Drop the nine to five workday if it isn’t working for your team.

If low self- esteem is holding you back, get rid of it.

3.

Have zero tolerance for excuses and laziness.

Just do it.

You were supposed to meet up for a workshop, but it’s snowing and you’re tired? Doesn’t matter! Go anyway.

4.

Make no assumptions about what will work.

You might be happy to try a new diet/life philosophy/course, but know there is no such thing as a holy grail that will solve everything.

5.

When something isn’t working, fix it.

You don’t get depressed or demoralized when your business isn’t taking off—you just work hard to figure out why it isn’t and what you can do about it.

6.

Problem-solving is best when everyone is involved.

In trying to quit smoking, you might recruit your friends and family to give you encouragement.

7.

People are a resource—seek information and opinions from as many as you can.

When making a big life change, you consult several close friends, your grandmother, and a mentor to ask if they think you’re doing the right thing.

If you’re having a family dispute, you sit down with everyone involved and invite them to pitch in with their opinions and proposed solutions (i.e.

you make a “quality circle”).

8.

Before you make a big decision, ask yourself “why” at least five consecutive times to better understand your process, motivation, and assumptions.

Example: I’m quitting university.

Why? I don’t want to be a doctor anymore.

Why? It’s too much pressure and it’s not worth it.

Why? Because I have to sacrifice so much, and I don’t know if I’m willing to do that.

Why? Because what’s important to me is my family.

Why? Because at the end of the day, I feel like love is more important than money (exaggerated, but you get the idea!).

9.

Be frugal.

Saving money is a form of efficiency.

If you trim a little off your budget, use this money to buy a more energy-efficient appliance, saving more money.

10.

The improvement process is infinite.

You never really reach the end— improvement is not a reward, it’s a way of life.

Example: You are not trying to lose ten pounds—you are trying to live the healthiest lifestyle possible, forever.

Now, how do you actually apply any of these principles in your own life? The first trick is to focus on action.

1 Look at what is being done, how, why, when, where, by whom, etc.

Bringing awareness to what is actually unfolding in reality is the first step to making small, repeated improvements.

Remember, you don’t have to change everything all at once—you simply have to improve.

And a small improvement is a big deal if you stick with it and build on it further.

Kaizen spends considerable time on the topic of waste, or “muda.” Waste is the opposite of what you’re trying to achieve, and in a sense, poor self-discipline is nothing more than a waste—a waste of time, energy, and resources.

In manufacturing/business kaizen, the goal is to produce without waste, but we can apply the model to our own “production lines” every time we work toward a goal.

The second trick is to focus on value.

Whatever it is you are doing, and whatever you are trying to master, there will naturally be some actions you can take that add tangible value, and others that do not.

Identify what doesn’t add value (or actively diminishes value) and remove it, and you have already made an improvement.

Here are some examples of ways you could be wasting—i.e.

taking action that doesn’t add value.

• Waiting.

Patience is a virtue, but do you throw away time on a useless commute, or queuing for things, or waiting for others to give you the go ahead, or waiting for a tedious process to finish before you can take action?. • Overproduction.

This may seem counterintuitive, but it’s the same as buying more groceries than you can eat before they expire—you are setting yourself up for waste in the future.

Don’t make more than you can save/keep effectively.

• Over processing.

This is putting more effort than is needed into a process when less work could have produced the same result.

It’s the equivalent of studying for months for a 10- minute pop quiz.

You waste time you could have better used on something else to add value.

• Transportation.

This applies more to logistics and production, but on a more basic level, the principle is: the more steps you add, the more opportunity there is for waste or error.

Try to have as few moving parts as possible.

• Unnecessary movement or action.

There is a cost to every action—using a machine causes wear and tear, exercising can do the same! Don’t incur unnecessary injury or damage if it doesn’t add value.

• Excess inventory.

Whatever is not yet produced has not actually added value yet.

In a more abstract sense, don’t invest too heavily in goals, plans, dreams, wishes, and grand visions for the future (“mental inventory”).

When you set your future plans in stone, you could be wasting unforeseen opportunities that come your way.

Stay fluid and update constantly, keeping your eye on what is actionable in the present.

• Mistakes.

In factory terms, defects.

These cost time and money to redo, cutting into profits.

In a personal sense, mistakes do happen, but it’s far easier not to make them in the first place than it is to make them and spend time and effort fixing them.

What does Kaizen say about self-discipline? Granted, not everyone wants to run their lives as though they were uber efficient Japanese factories.

Nevertheless, there’s a lot that can be learnt about self-discipline from kaizen.

While we all know that having more self-control is a great thing, kaizen gives us a tangible method for self-control, and a practical framework for actually achieving it.

In a way, approaching the details of your life with the calm and detached rationality of an engineer examining a defect in a factory machine has certain advantages.

One of the key principles is to stop making excuses—there is no tolerance for dwelling on resistance or laziness, only an insistence on doing what needs to be done.

Blaming others or dwelling on how bad it feels to fail doesn’t actually improve your circumstances.

Only actions in the right direction will—so just get on with the business of taking those actions.

The kaizen principles can be used harmoniously with many of the ideas we’ve already covered in this book.

For example, take a look at the following scenario and how you could solve the problem of procrastination using kaizen.

Say your monthly marketing report is due every third day of the following month.

For the past three months, you have been late in handing it in.

Instead of simply resolving, “Next time I’ll do better!” kaizen teaches you to first identify the problem by asking who, what, where, why, and how.

You try to gain a full overview of what the problem is, first and foremost.

You look at the process itself—what is the process of making and submitting that report, and where exactly is the trouble happening? What are the triggers of those problem points, and what are the outcomes? What is helping the overall flow of the process, and what is obviously hindering it? Examining the past three months more closely, you start to one by one spot problem points: (1) You don’t compile daily data promptly, so you experience delays in consolidating them at the end of the month.

(2) Once you do receive the data, you initially laze around, as you find it tedious to compute many operations manually.

(3) At the close of the month, you leave making the report to another time, as you typically busy yourself attending client meetings every month’s end.

After conducting a thorough assessment of the way you have handled the process in the past, you act deliberately to address the problem points and counterbalance any waste you encounter.

You look at the various actions you take and ask what value they add, or if they don’t, what you are doing to change them toward a more effective process.

You ask yourself several “why” questions in succession to get to the root cause of the actions that have derailed you from your goals.

You accept no excuses from yourself—you take immediate, targeted action to prevent the same problem from happening again.

So instead of leaving data recording and consolidation to the end of every month, maybe you commit to the prompt documentation of daily numbers and a weekly consolidation of the data to make them easier to handle at the month’s close.

Rather than compute everything manually, you decide to look into and use technology that can do the calculations for you.

And instead of attempting to fit report-making and attendance to client meetings all at the final week of every month, you limit meeting schedules only to the second or third week of each month.

Later, you appraise the effectiveness of your actions and update as you go (because improvement is not a once-off, but ongoing).

1 This example, on a practical level, may be nothing more complex than understanding that you keep tempting snacks at your desk and that every time you reach a challenging part in your work, you reach for a treat to distract and soothe yourself.

You get rid of the treats and replace it with a cup of tea or water bottle, and vow to keep on with your work.

Now, if that seems a little simple to you, it’s because it is.

Kaizen only offers a procedural framework of how to structure your thinking about your processes—it doesn’t actually do any of the work for you.

For this, you will need (you guessed it) self- discipline.