Small Changes for the Better 05 February 2021 Making changes, within your personal life or at work can be difficult, especially if we’re scared by the prospect of making large changes. It can be easy to stagnate,feeling comfortable with what you are doing now. However, breaking down the change into manageable chunks allows us to move forwards towards our goals, whether it’s improving your morning routine or your customer service. This method of small changes adding up to make a big impact is called Kaizen. What is Kaizen? Kaizen revolves around the idea that, rather than making large changes to improve something, you make continuous smaller changes. Kaizen is the Sino-Japanese word for “change for better” and that’s exactly what it's all about. It has been popularised by Japan corporations, the most well known use being within the Toyota car company. However, it is used in countless different corporate settings: healthcare, life coaching, government, banking etc. Kaizen can also be used to improve day to day routines, as many people are starting to find out. Equally, you can use it to nail your latest hobby or skill, or work on an element of your self improvement. History Kaizen was first used after World War II, in Japan, while it was occupied by the Allies. The first iteration of it was implemented in Toyota, with an idea called a quality circle. The basic principle of this was that a group of workers performing similar tasks would meet regularly to identify, analyze and solve problems in their work. The concept quickly caught on and by the 1950s it was increasingly popular all over Japan. By the 80s the concept had begun to spread around the world and now it is used in companies all over the globe. The 5 Elements Teamwork For Kaizen to be successful in a business setting, everyone has to be involved. The first instances of Kaizen were all about small teams working towards improving their processes, whilst more recently this method is used in every aspect of a company, for every process. This means that each aspect has its own small team striving to make improvements. You can use Kaizen in your personal life as well, by working towards similar goals with others, whether it’s to work out more or become a better chess player. Working as a team helps to motivate others and to keep your morale high. If you’re looking to develop something a little more personal or an area in which those around you have less interest, don’t panic - the other elements will still hold true even if you work alone. Personal Discipline Kaizen requires discipline to be successful. It may be difficult to feel you are working effectively when you are also constantly analysing the way you are working, however, this is an important part of Kaizen. You can start small with discipline, for example, setting your alarm a few minutes earlier each day, or marching on the spot in between TV commercials. This will ‘kick start’ motivation, with discipline kicking in as you see your first results. Improved Moral Kaizen should inherently improve morale as the changes will make mundane tasks more interesting and help you feel that you’re making progress. Sometimes however, it can be difficult to notice how much impact the small changes are making. This is when it's important to look at the big picture and see how much you have done and what it allows you to tackle next! It can be useful to keep a journal or tracker, to allow you to easily reflect on your successes. Suggestions for improvement Maybe the most important part of Kaizen is to constantly be thinking about improvements. It is, however, easier said than done. To constantly improve processes and tasks, you must be constantly analysing in the back of your mind, thinking about where you could improve your habits, processes and lifestyle. This is where the previous 3 elements of teamwork, tracking and discipline all work together to aid us. Use all of the other elements to your advantage and you will find that you naturally start to think about improvements and implementing them without even trying! Quality circles From the inception of Kaizen to today, quality circles have been the core of what makes the method work so well in companies. As explained earlier, quality circles are groups of people who work on similar tasks. They all come together to improve the way they work. You can do this by splitting every meeting up into 3 sections. First, you need to identify a part of your process that can be improved (everywhere can be improved!). Once identified, you need to analyse this process partand to start thinking about possible solutions and improvements. Finally, you need to decide on the right approach and agree how to make the necessary change. Remember, you shouldn’t be hesitant to try different things, you can always go back and review again if they don’t work. You can use these techniques to help with personal Kaizen as well, reviewing changes to your personal life with family or friends, or using a journal or tracker to review alone if necessary - just think about the 3 sections when trying to improve parts of your personal regime! What are the benefits? With endless possible changes, the benefits of Kaizen are also endless. Each improvement you make can benefit you in a different way - from time savings and financial savings, to improved mental and physical health, or even enhancing personal or work relationships. If you continue to make improvements regularly then you will notice that making improvements becomes second nature and increasingly easy to implement. Each little step helps move you towards achieving your bigger goals, while all the time improving your discipline, reducing procrastination and making you think more critically about what you are doing. Drawbacks The only real drawback of this method is that although constant small changes are being made to improve as a whole, no leaps have been made. Leaps, or large changes are sometimes vital when doing something new, whether it be for satisfaction of achievement, the type of project in hand, or to ensure you hit set deadlines that are in place. Sometimes you need to make a leap to try something drastically different, otherwise you’ll never be innovative. The best solution to this is to use Kaizen to keep making small changes while thinking about other methods you can employ to make the ‘leaps’ you need - every situation has a suitable technique! Get 1% better each day Another element of Kaizen that is becoming extremely popular is the concept of compounding small changes - changes that are added to over time to grow bigger and bigger. The idea is to start with a small change that is impossible not to be able to achieve and keep doing more of the same thing each day - eventually you will get to a big change. A great example of this is getting into a routine of working out in the morning. You can start by doing 1 pushup when you get out of bed, then the next day add another and the next add another. In a month you’ll be doing 30 pushups a day! How to implement Kaizen Kaizen is simple to implement once it is broken down, so follow the 6 steps below to easily implement the method. The 6 steps of Kaizen: Identify an opportunity for improvement. Brainstorm and analyse new ideas, with others or alone, for ways you could approach the area you’d like to improve in. Break the idea down into sub-tasks to simplify each part of it - you may need to repeat this step until you have small enough tasks that you feel you can tackle them without fear! Simply begin - take your first task or change and implement it. Test and monitor the change and adapt if necessary. When the current change is embedded, make sure you implement the next without delay. Kaizen in your day to day routine Kaizen is perfect for both individuals and businesses, thanks to its simple and manageable approach that ensures that change doesn’t feel too overwhelming to tackle. You can use it to get better at that instrument you’ve always wanted to play, to improve the look in your garden, to start learning how to cook from scratch, to learn a language, to build up your ability to lift weights...the possibilities are endless! At MedicAlert, we have used Kaizen in our marketing department. We have categorised our 3 main goals for the year and split them into smaller sections and subsections so we can work towards achieving them all by the end of the year. Over the years, we have been consistently making small changes (and some larger ones too) to improve our service, that’s why we remain the number 1 medical ID service in the UK. If you have a hidden medical condition then we’re here, ready to give you the peace of mind you need. FIND OUT MORE Sources: Kanbanchi - What is Kaizen? Wikipedia - Kaizen Appvizer - The 6 steps of the Kaizen Approach What is continuous improvement? The Kaizen way to self improvement Article Categories Health and Wellbeing Hints and Tips
