Kaizen Way to Achieve Our Goals

What is Kaizen? Kaizen is a Japanese word meaning Change for better or to continually improve.

Kaizen is made up of two words, ‘Kai’ meaning ‘change’ & ‘Zen’ meaning ‘good’.

Kaizen is an actual business process improvement philosophy or tool for making continuous improvement in all business processes.

This Japanese principle was first introduced by Toyota is the 1980s & later adopted all over the world.

Change: Change is the only constant in life, said the Greek Philosopher Heraclitus.

We are changing from the time we are born. We constantly evolve. Changes are a normal part of our life. As we are changing, the world is changing.

Change can happen in a positive or negative way. How we embrace the change is our ability to adapt to the change. The change affects us all, but how we handle it determines how we shape our lives.

Many times, change pushes us out of our comfort zone. So, there is some fear attached to the change or disruption. It is human tendency to resist to any change.

The conscious change for the better is Kaizen

No, we are not discussing business processes, but our real-life day-to-day challenges & problems.

Kaizen in daily life:

 We all strive to improve our life daily. We try hard to change or improve our lifestyle continually.

We aspire to improve our life by having a good education, good means of earning & a good place to live in with a happy family, travel around the world, pursue passion & achieve success.

So constantly we look forward to improvement in all walks of life.

The Kaizen philosophy assumes that our way of life- be it working life, social life or personal life deserves to be constantly improved.

The aspect of Kaizen is that of an ongoing & never-ending improvement process. Implementing Kaizen need not be complicated. It can be tailored to meet our needs.

What can be improved?

Personnel/work techniques /work methods/work procedures /time management/facilities/equipment/systems/software/tools/materials/Paradigms (Mind set)

Strive for continuous improvement. Improve from the present state of good or bad. Things can always be improved.

How to improve?

Learn to question the Status Quo.

Do not waste time making excuses but focus on finding solutions.

Do not rely on a single expert but learn from many people.

Learn to base decisions based on facts, not opinions.

Start making improvement right away, do not wait for perfection

How Kaizen can be used in our day-to-day life & to achieve our life goals?

Aim for micro improvements in all walks of life. Cumulated micro improvements will result in big improvements over a period.

To improve relationships

To improve physical & mental fitness

To improve time management

To improve wealth

To continually learn new things

The mindset of continual improvement can be applied to improve the life attribute we wish to change for the better. Focus on the journey, not the destination.

Start getting up early 10min/week. In six weeks, you will be getting one hour early. This means an additional 365 productive hours will be available to you over the next year.

Start reading just 10 pages/day. i.e 300 pages/month & 3600 pages/year. This translates into completing 12-15 books/year.

Start writing one page/day. You can complete one book /year & publish it.

Start learning & mastering one new app/month. In a year you have mastered 12 new apps.

Start saving 5000/pm. Over 20 years the principal alone will be 1.2million.

This is the power of small improvements practiced over a period.

How to address a problem.

Start with identifying the problem you would like to solve. It can be health, wealth, happiness, relationship, learning.

Once the problem statement is ready, identify what needs to be achieved.

Eg: You have identified Health & fitness as the attribute to improve.

Map your present status by consulting a doctor.  Define your health with some measurements. Like height, weight, body mass index (BMI), Blood pressure, Blood sugar to start with.

Once you know these measurements, Compare the data with standard reference data. The difference is the gap that needs to be improved.

Let us take overweight as the problem to be solved.

Taking the doctor’s advice, identify the root cause for this problem.

It can be food habits, sedentary lifestyle, indiscipline, Environment, certain medications, genetic, Stress, emotional factors, poor sleep, metabolic rate, etc.

Based on the root cause, list down methods to improve.  Start working on the same & maintain the data.

Periodically measure the data & see the trend. Based on this if any course corrections are needed, to be done. Celebrate the incremental improvement & sustain the effort & discipline.

To conclude, Kaizen is a simple, cost-effective, easy-to-understand technique or philosophy when implemented with discipline will yield magnificent results.

Anil Tadmari