Science Explains Why Kaizen, or Continuous Improvement, Accelerates Success
For most of us, the term kaizen is associated with Toyota, which made the practice famous in its factories.
Do you have big goals you're hoping to reach, but can't seem to make any progress toward achieving them? Kaizen, the Japanese practice of continuous improvement might just be the perfect tool to help you work toward seemingly out-of-reach goals.
That suggestion comes from Jonny Thomson a philosophy teacher and author of Mini Philosophy: A Small Book of Big Ideas. In an article for Big Think, Thomson argues that kaizen is the most effective way to get there. Behavioral science suggests that he's right.
For most of us, the term kaizen is associated with Toyota, which made the practice famous in its factories. But, as Thomson notes, the term literally translates as "good change," and it has uses that go way beyond manufacturing. And the general concept goes all the way back to ancient Rome, when the philosopher Seneca wrote, "It is enough for me if every day I reduce the number of my vices, and blame my mistakes."
Toyota used kaizen to transform itself from a textile company to an auto manufacturer. Rather than a sudden and complete rebranding, announced with great fanfare, that would be more common in the United States, the company made the change gradually. "There was a change here, a shift there. Every day something was different, every week something was better, and when a month became a year, incredible change had been achieved," Thomson writes.
And, he argues, the same approach can work for all sorts of personal and professional goals. For example, he writes, those of us who aren't runners are awed by the endurance and athleticism required to complete a marathon. "But any race or feat of endurance is simply one small step after another. Many are those runners who repeat, 'Just to the top of that hill,' or, 'Just one more mile,' over and over--until one mile becomes 26.2."
Stanford behavioral scientist BJ Fogg doesn't use the term kaizen, but his approach to changing behavior and self-improvement, honed over working with thousands of people at the Stanford Behavior Design Lab, is to break any change you hope to make into the smallest possible steps. In fact, he suggests that if you want to run a marathon, the habit to begin with is to just to put on your running shoes and tie the laces--and then celebrate your own accomplishment.
Being interviewed for his book Career Self-Care: Find Your Happiness, Success, and Fulfillment at Work, Fogg was asked a pressing question: How on earth do you get from just tying your shoes to running a marathon, especially if you're not pushing yourself to do more. The process tends to happen naturally, he explained. I was a big skeptical until I tried it myself. I'd long known that I really should have a will, and out of a combination of superstition and reluctance to contemplate difficult and unpleasant questions, I had put it off literally for decades. With Fogg's philosophy in mind, I set myself the task of opening an online will-writing website every day. That was it--I didn't have to do more than that. But after a few days of just opening the site, I found myself starting to answer some of the questions on the homepage. Little by little, a tiny bit most days, I answered one question after another and worked my way through all the thorny decisions that making a will presents.
If you want to try this kaizen approach for yourself, here's how to get started.
1. Aim for 1 percent improvement.
Pick an area in your business or personal life where you would like to improve, or a big, long-term task that you would like to accomplish. (I recommend trying kaizen for only one area or task at a time when first starting out with it.) Ask yourself: If I could make only 1 percent of progress in this area, what would that look like? It very well might look like just putting on your running shoes, or perhaps running just a quarter of a mile, which is about 1 percent of a marathon. Whatever that 1 percent is, start there, and keep doing it.
2. Add the next 1 percent.
Only you can decide when you're ready to take the next step and what that step should be, but ideally it should be another tiny, 1 percent step. If you were to break a big task down to 1 percent pieces and then complete one of them every day, it would take you about three-and-a-half months to complete it. But not every task is right for that sort of approach, and for some things, adding another 1 percent every day might be going too fast, or too slow.
So figure out what amount of improvement or additional work is right for you, and try to be consistent about doing it every day, or every weekday, or every Monday, or whatever makes the most sense. When in doubt, think smaller, not bigger. You're better off setting yourself a task that's too small and easy than one that's too big and difficult.
3. Focus on day-to-day improvement, not long-term goals.
"Keep your eye on the prize," is frequently heard advice, but it's not so useful when it comes to kaizen. Instead, focus your attention on the task you're currently working on, or perhaps the very next one. Leaving long-term plans and ambitious goals out of your day-to-day thinking will make the tiny step process go more smoothly, Fogg notes.
Besides, one aspect of kaizen is that it has no end. There's never a point where your work is perfect, your company is perfect, your product is perfect, you yourself are perfect, and there's no more improvement to be made. Kaizen is about the process, not the end goal, and it's called continuous improvement because there is no stopping point. So, think about the journey, not the destination. And trust that, like Toyota, you can achieve incredible change along the way.
