So, today we're going to look at the fascinating idea of Kaizen. Kaizen is a Japanese lifestyle
or philosophy that encourages imperceptible micro-changes that over time produce dramatic
improvements. It's one of those super simple things to implement once you build it into
your lifestyle but the benefits are huge. So, what's the difference between that and
continual improvement? In the West, when we talk about continual improvement, the way
to visualize this is as a staircase. We are here, now we want to go to the next stair,
so we have to discuss what's the jump, what changes, what processes have to be fixed,
and so it's a lot of work. And if we do even bigger steps, like we're reorganizing the
department, re-optimizing our products, all this takes a tremendous effort and then we're
done. And then we stay at that level until the next time we make the effort and then
we stay at that level. But Kaizen is a different idea. Kaizen is, think of a very gradual slope
that you're walking on and it's so imperceptible you can hardly feel that you're going up a
hill. It's so gradual. But then when you stop and look back, you go, oh, we've gained all
this height. Now, the benefit of doing this is that it makes improvement effortless. And
since we're in this whole module talking about making things effortless, this is one of those
super huge benefit things. It means creating a lifestyle that serves better every day.
Because it feels like free change. It's like putting change in the background and yet things
keep getting better. Does that sound amazing or what? And so this idea, which I've been
living for over the last 30 years, is in my daily life, it's in my business life. I'm
always doing these imperceptible micro changes. So let's talk about the three pillars for
creating this kind of lifestyle for yourself. And this as a business culture, as a team
of leaders, we can do this personally and together in the business. So it comes down
to three things. Optimization, standardization and elimination. So by optimization we mean
making things better. Small imperceptible changes. Standardization, making it normal
to be always looking, doing this. In other words, we do this as a continual way of thinking.
And finally, elimination. Always looking for steps we can take out. Little bits we can
make shorter or quicker or better. So let's just jump into all of those.
Number one. Let's look at optimization. So making things better. So think of this as
every single day when you're doing something, when you touch your email, making it slightly
better. Maybe you're improved today. All you do is improve what your signatures are on
your email. Or you have a way of organizing some categories so you can drop stuff that
you can save off your emails in a certain way. It could be even as small as don't start
your day with doing email because that's your prime time. You're just going to do it
at lunchtime. It's these tiny, tiny changes, but they become permanent. So it's these tiny
micro improvements over time. So you're looking at doing that every time. So whether it's
organizing your basin at home and where your toothbrush is or whatever it is, it's just
making tiny, tiny changes. And you don't have to reorganize your entire closet, for instance.
You just change the way the sock drawer works. And then a few days later or next week, you
tweak something else, you tweak something else. A year from now, you'll be amazed at
how organized your entire closet is. You'll be amazed how great your email looks. So it's
these tiny imperceptible changes. So for instance, when we're doing automations or I'm looking
for reports, I'm thinking, how can I make this report a little bit better? Not a step
change like add a whole new feature necessarily, but these tiny little improvements. Can I
improve the font? Can I make the headings clearer? It's these tiny imperceptible changes.
Now it's really important that it's tiny, that it's the gradual slope, because that's
where you get the free change from. It's that mindset of completely tweaking little things
every day as a way of life. And when most people start learning Kaizen, they overdo
it. They try to fix everything on everything they touch. That's not necessary. It's just
when you touch something, making it slightly better. But you don't always. When it works
for a while, coming back the next time. But any time, because you have a mindset always
looking for these tiny imperceptible changes.
Okay, let's talk about standardization. So standardization is making this normal. Making
it normal to be thinking in this way.
So, for instance, you can automate some of the elements.
I'll give you super simple examples.
What if you had a bowl near the back door
where you put all your keys?
So you're never looking for keys again.
Or you have a little rack where all the kids drop shoes
so we never search for shoes when we're leaving the house,
which is what we did and rarely were we looking
for shoes or keys.
Or having a simple system for never leaving late.
It's these little things.
So if you look at what creates a lot of stress in our lives
is that we haven't standardized simple things.
We haven't standardized where we leave the keys.
In a business context, we haven't standardized
the simple process of when somebody signs onto a product,
they get an onboarding email.
We haven't standardized.
So when we start standardizing things
and we make them consistent,
so think of standardization as making consistency normal.
When we start to do that,
we remove a huge amount of stress in our lives.
Not finding keys, not helping the kids find their shoes,
always leaving late, arriving late situation.
That is stressful and yet you can standardize.
When I look at my flight details,
I see the time I know I have to leave two and a half hours
from my home before whatever the boarding time is
or whatever the flight time is.
And I just standardize that.
I don't think about it.
I'm not always checking traffic.
I've built all the traffic issues and all that in.
I just have one simple standardized time I leave.
And for you, that could be just,
because if you can make your travel effortless,
that makes a huge difference.
So I've standardized a number of elements of my travel.
I've standardized elements of how I work.
I've standardized lots of little things in my workday,
little habits, little ways, little routines.
And this standardization amazingly takes off
so much pressure off your life
and makes you just enjoy and make it feel effortless.
Okay, the last step is elimination.
That's removing the extra things.
And sometimes one could even argue
we should have started with this,
because I've found myself,
I don't know if you've done this,
where you have optimized something and then deleted it.
You go, I could have saved a lot of time.
So, how can we make this not five steps
and make it three steps?
Do we need this step?
Does this have to exist?
Challenging the way things are.
And can we take out steps?
Can we make the process simpler?
And it's this elimination that really, really helps.
Just another personal practical thing.
Maybe you're very particular about
what your car looks like.
But instead of doing like a one and a half hour detail,
that's too much work.
What if you did a 20 minute detail every second week
and you always have a clean car?
So, it's those little things where you've standardized,
you've eliminated the big shifts.
So, think of this again as we recap this.
Instead of the staircase of continual improvement
where we stay on this level until we reorganize
and rethink it and then stay on that level,
instead of doing that,
what if we just put it into a gradual slope
of continual micro improvements?
This will genuinely take so much stress out of your life
and make so much of your work feel effortless.
Enjoy.