Kaizen!

On August 21, 2006 I arrived to my cubicle ready for another ordinary day, doing ordinary work, at an ordinary job. As usual, I was scrambling to get settled in fast because I was late… again! (I’ve always had a really strong work ethic as long as punctuality didn’t count).

On my chair, was a memo from the boss who over the next year became my mentor. Bill was the greatest boss a young Entrepreneur-stuck-at-a-job could ask for. He knew about my dreams to own my own business and took me under his wing.

This memo introduced me to a series of lessons I would get every week for 13 weeks, which I’ll be sharing on here over the coming weeks. I won’t be posting the lessons word-for-word. Mostly because I can’t find the source to credit, so you’re going to get my translation and version of them.

Lesson #1. Practice Kaizen

I’m starting with this one because Kaizen just happens to be my motto for 2011.

This word was given to me at the beginning of this year by my personal trainer/coach/health mentor. It’s Japanese for ‘continuous improvement.’

So when, not one, but TWO mentors give you the same philosophy you should probably take a closer look, right?!

Kaizen means continuous and incremental gains… bit-by-bit, day-by-day. These incremental gains done continuously will eventually add up to some rockstar results – and in business that looks like a valuable competitive advantage.

This philosophy will keep you reaching and stretching to outdo yesterday. Without it, you will lose ground.

Tom Peters puts it this way, “Good quality is a stupid idea. The only thing that counts is your quality getting better at a more rapid rate… It’s real simple. If we’re not getting more, better, faster than they are getting more, better, faster, then we’re getting less better or more worse.”

Your productivity, response time, quality, cost control, and customer service should all show steady gains and your skills should be in a state of constant renewal.

Now insert this philosophy into any area of your life and see what happens.

Cool word, huh? 😉