Monday, October 13, 2008

Tenkaizen rebuttal

I've been thinking about a post that a friend wrote last month regarding Kaizen and Tenkaizen. There was something about it that bothered me and I guess I'm one of those types of people that always thinks up a snappy comeback 10-minutes after the person you were talking to has left.
So anyway, here is my response....a month later.

I think that Kaizen (continuous improvement) and Tenkaizen (revolutionary thinking) are different aspects of a similar concept. Kaizen, to me, is a big part of how you should live your life, both personally and professionally. You should always strive to better yourself. The key with Kaizen is not necessarily the size of the improvement so much as the fact that at you are doing things to improve yourself or your abilities and that this is a constant goal. This does not mean that you just improve upon only what you already know, for me, it means making yourself better, or more efficient, or more knowledgeable by whatever means that presents itself. This improvement could and probably should involve radical new ways of doing things, which to me is the Tenkaizen concept.

So perhaps, my new mantra should be:

Live Kaizen...Think Tenkaizen