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In the technical, production-oriented applications of kaizen, small steps are seen as a way to produce cumulative change. One tiny change after another tiny change followed by another tiny change, and so on, will eventually deposit you on the doorstep of your goal. This process is summed up in the saying of the ancient Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu: “A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.”
Without fear, and without frustration, very small steps can lead to a revolution.
What people really want, Dr. Deming argued, is to feel appreciated. They want to be heard, to be known, to make a contribution, and to be protected from grossly unfair or unpleasant conditions.
Fortunately, a kaizen program for improved employee relations wouldn’t take a lot of time, only about three minutes a day.
When employees praise their bosses for being great communicators, they are not necessarily talking about oratorical skills or hearty, outgoing personalities. Some of the finest leaders are quiet and not given to inspirational speeches. But good leaders take advantage of small moments to connect with the people they encounter at work:
I once asked a Toyota manager what the managers do when they receive poor suggestions. He responded, “These are very important to us because they tell us our training of this employee has been ineffective and we can now help this person to improve.”
the people who are best able to reduce the costs of the job are the people who are actually performing that job.
Kaizen requires that we look for, and address, mistakes while they are still small.
You don’t have to look to major disasters to see the wisdom of noticing and exploring small mistakes.
Although it’s necessary to expect staff members to bring their best efforts, a perfectionistic attitude does not prevent mistakes. It only drives those mistakes underground. When employees of a perfectionistic supervisor make errors, they will try to hide them, shift the blame, or tell themselves that the mistake isn’t significant.
you make a mistake, tell us so that we can prevent a bigger problem.1 That message echoes a sign that W. Edwards Deming placed in his kaizen factories, in block letters: FIX THE PROBLEM, NOT THE BLAME.
But if FedEx delivers 3 million packages a night and only succeeds 99 percent of the time, there are 30 thousand customers who will be disappointed each night.2 Emphasizing the numbers in the negative direction is an effective way of making the point.
the controller issue instructions to the pilot about speed and altitude; the communication was short and clear. What happened next was critical: The pilot repeated back what he had heard. The industry assumes that air traffic controllers sometimes misspeak and pilots sometimes don’t listen; repeating the words allows both parties to confirm the message.
It would be far better for the industry—and its patients—if it could build in systems that account for the ways that even the smartest and most focused professionals can go wrong.
being first is not the same as being best. Many iconic firms were not the original producers of an idea; they learned from the mistakes of the first and then developed a superior product. Apple didn’t invent a single category of product. Southwest Airlines didn’t invent low-cost fares. Google didn’t invent search engines. McDonald’s didn’t invent the fast-food burger.
For 60 years, Toyota carefully nurtured its reputation for excellence. Using a practice called jojo, which means “slowly, gradually, and steadily,”
dislike of wastefulness is the mother of invention.
Perry Spencer, an engineer at Raytheon, lost his chocolate candy bar when he left it near a piece of radar equipment and it started to melt. It’s easy to imagine a busy engineer thinking:, Oh, great. Of course radar would heat up chocolate, I should have known … and I was so hungry, too. Well, clean up the mess and get over it, buddy. Back to work. Instead Spencer became curious and began to investigate the possibilities; his curiosity led him to invent the microwave oven.3
Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks, says, “The only way we can succeed and sustain growth and innovation is linked to the basic elements of one cup of coffee, one customer, and one barista at a time.”
As the Harvard Business Review remarked, “A passenger may look unwell; another may have no book to read; yet another may have a laptop that has run out of power. Most employees don’t pay attention to these small things.” But Singapore Airlines employees do.5
A great opportunity to increase customer loyalty and sales occurs when your business messes up and you know you have irritated customers.
Breathe in to a count of four. • Hold to a count of eight. • Breathe out to a count of four. Do the four-eight-four technique 10 times whenever: • You sit down at your desk to take stock of the problem that’s bothering you, the one you want to change. • Your supervisor calls and demands to know what you are doing to meet your goals. • You feel the urge to quit. • You can’t sleep. • You start to feel anxious for any reason.
The good news is that the cortex is a creature of habit. Advertisers pay to air the same commercial three or four times during the same television program because they know psychology: to create a new behavior, such as buying a certain product, repetition is key. Use this knowledge to your advantage.
OBSTACLE 5: LOOKING FOR ANSWERS IN THE WRONG PLACE In 2010, David H. Freedman wrote an article for Discover, “Why Scientific Studies Are So Often Wrong: The Street-light Effect.”1 It’s based on the old story of the man who is crawling around underneath a streetlight. A policeman comes up to the man and asks him what he is doing. “I’m looking for my keys,” the man replies. And then he points down the street and says, “I dropped them over there.” The officer is puzzled. “If you dropped them over there, why are you looking for them here?” The man believes the answer is obvious. “Because the light
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If your career or business feels like a disaster, and if everything you try to fix seems to make matters worse, you may be “streetlighting” yourself. One way to check for streetlighting is to ask yourself this question: What is my goal?
Nothing is particularly hard if you divide it into small jobs. —HENRY FORD
The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret to getting started is breaking your complex, overwhelming task into small, manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one. —MARK TWAIN
Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world. —DESMOND TUTU
