改善: Continous Process Improvement

One of my deep interests is in the "art & science of process improvement". Maybe this is due to the fact that I've had the misfortune of having worked at some organizations that were seemingly mired in an endless purgatory of making the same mistakes over & over. Or maybe it's due to the nature of my personality. Probably a bit of both.

In the past, I've noticed the most fundamentally repeated mistake is the treatment of skilled employees as an expendable resource, however that's a subject for a different post :-)

The Japanese even have a word in their business terminology for the "art & science of process improvement". It's 改善, which in Chinese we would say "gai shan". In Japanese they say it "kai zen". The meaning of these two characters are: 改 (gai: to improve), 善(shan: gentle like a sheep). Together this word means improvement, but it stands for an entire methodology.

It's interesting because they have a formal methodology for something that alot of companies here in the US don't even take seriously. It might as well be the tooth-fairy.

I think this concept is important to truly take to heart, because process improvement not only helps companies gain competitive advantages, but it makes the lives of employees better, through the strengthening of "collective purpose". Companies can only be as good the quality of their employees.

So I've been studying this concept in my spare time. I found a great article on it here.