It’s not particularly hard to improve.
Really.
You just look at something that might be made better.
Then you think about what might be done to make it better. (Don’t overthink this step. There’s plenty of low-hanging fruit for the picking.)
Then you do it.
After an interval, you assess whether you do, in fact, make that thing better– be it process, recipe, life choice or what-have-you.
If it didn’t work, simply return to what you were doing before. If it did, simply continue.
But if you want to really unlock the power behind kaizen, ask yourself: why didn’t it work?
When something works, the reason is usually obvious. But when something doesn’t work that might have worked there may be a flawed assumption somewhere along the line. Why didn’t it work?
It’s said that most of the most amazing scientific discoveries are not prefaced with the joyful cry eureka!– they are presaged with the muttered phrase, “That’s funny….”
Changes that work are cool and useful. Changes that don’t work are liable to unlock some insight. You thought it would work but it didn’t. The solution didn’t fit the situation. Is the situation different than you assumed, or was the solution not as effective as it had seemed.
The answer is always concrete. Chase it. Demand it.
Because that’s when you’ll really start to improve.
[ssbp]
