Recently I came across a vacancy in one of the firms in my city, the Kaizen Manager. If we discard the question of how they are going to carry out this specialist in the classifier of professions, then the idea is good. Having penetrated into the Kaizen philosophy, I saw many common points with Kairos management and the study of effective multifunctionality. It is about Kaizen that this article will be discussed, more precisely, those principles that coincide with my ideas about the proper development of social systems.
What is Kaizen?
Kaizen is a Japanese philosophy aimed at the continuous improvement of all life processes, especially business. It was born in the postwar years for the accelerated recovery of the Japanese economy. For the first time, Kaizen’s efficiency was felt by Toyota’s campaign, which thanks to it was able to quickly start production after the end of World War II.
The successes of the Japanese did not go unnoticed in the West, quickly spreading Kaizen philosophy to many countries of the world. Representations in the CIS countries also appeared. Personally, I really like the site Kaydzen club in Ukraine. It can be found in the free access to many feature articles, newsletter and cases of implementation of this philosophy in the conditions of domestic enterprises. What is the uniqueness of this concept? Consider the basic principles of Kaizen.
Principles of Kaizen
If we compare with the European and American approach, Eastern traditions are fundamentally different in management and work organization. The usual vertical of power and the division of labor are replaced by the horizontal of mutual aid and interchangeability. A similar approach is promoted by the Kairos-management system, but more on that later.
The basic principles of Kaizen include:
- Focus on customers, meeting their needs;
- Clear work planning, comparison of the obtained results with the predicted ones;
- Continuous analysis and monitoring of the activities of various departments of the company;
- The ability to recognize their mistakes and problems;
- Expeditious elimination of the reasons worsening the work, prevention of their appearance in the future;
- Encouraging change in all areas of the company;
- Optimization of the production process and the fastest possible introduction of quality at all its stages;
- Standardization of approaches and methods to consolidate success;
- Establishing effective communication and openness between employees;
- Informing staff about the processes occurring in the company;
- Regular exchange of experience across, between employees, the transfer of personal experience to other participants in the workflow;
- Encourage self-discipline and respect for others;
- The cult of personal growth and self-development, the continuous improvement of professionalism;
- Maintaining good relationships in the team, focus on employee involvement in the life of the company;
- Creation of working teams and relevant quality circles in all areas of the company;
- The delegation of various powers to employees, which is possible due to their versatility;
- Creation of cross-functional teams, regular staff rotation between different departments.
The introduction of these fairly simple principles allowed Japanese corporations to take a leading position in the world, and Kaizen's teachings could become one of the most popular ways to manage.
In addition to large firms, Kaizen can be used in a small company, or to improve the lives of one person. This is helped by one of the Kaizen tools called 5S - a rationalization system for working space or life in general:
- Seiri - accuracy (sorting);
- Seiton - order (rationalization);
- Seiso - clean (cleaning);
- Seiketsu - standardization;
- Shitsuke - discipline.
If in a few words, then Seiri means making a list of what needs to be optimized, and getting rid of everything superfluous, Seiton means organizing, prioritizing, Seiso - cleaning up your workplace and unnecessary thoughts in your head, Seiketsu - setting standards for effective innovation, Shitsuke - strict adherence to the chosen path of development.
Another key element of Kaizen is the 4M system, which defines the four main pillars of any enterprise. These include:
- Man - person;
- Machine - equipment;
- Material - materials;
- Method - working methods.
Optimization of each of these "M" leads to an improvement in the activity of the whole company.
What is common and what are the differences between Kaizen and Kairos management?
Since the retelling of the collected information about Kaizen is not the goal of this article, we proceed directly to the general moments with Kairos management. Both the one and the other approach is aimed at optimizing the interaction of man and the world around him. Both Kaizen and Kairos management welcomes self-development.
In the case of Kairos-management, the full development of a person, not always associated with his professional activity, is welcomed in the first place. This fits perfectly into one of the basic tenets of my teaching - effective multifunctionality.
The wider the erudition and experience of a person, the more original his ideas may be. This skill is especially relevant in teams that practice brainstorming. Imagine a fairly common situation when there are four narrowly-based employees working in the department: advertiser, marketer, designer and programmer. Accordingly, by brainstorming in such a team, we get the potential of combining the four intellectual spheres. Now suppose that each of them has several other hobbies, or professional areas. For example, an advertiser in parallel is also a PR person who enjoys yoga. A marketer of first education is a historian, and during his studies he also worked as a bartender. The designer has always been interested in architecture, and in his spare time also computer games. Programmer, working as a copywriter, and also enjoys collecting coins. Thanks to such multi-functionality, we get the intersection of as many as twelve intellectual spheres from the four participants in brainstorming. Accordingly, the number of possible combinations increases many times.
Kaizen also widely practiced the principle of cross-functional teams and parallel design, when representatives of various professions are involved in the implementation of certain tasks.
Kairos management went even further in this, popularizing not only the dialogue between different professions, but also the application of a whole pool of human skills, not always associated only with his direct work.
A new era has brought new challenges to man. In the XXI century, the principle of "study-work-success" does not always work. People increasingly have to improvise, conquering living space, now not only among their own kind, but also from artificial intelligence. Kaizen philosophy, which originated in turbulent times and incorporates thousands of years of Japanese wisdom, makes a person and his business competitive. Kairos management helps to further actualize the hidden potential of each of us, opening up additional perspectives in self-realization and success.
