Japan and the ‘kaizen’ principle

While living in Japan, I noticed one personal trait in many people: the willingness to keep learning and improving. One of Japan’s most famous sushi chefs, Jiro Ono, has worked all his life to consistently improve the sushi that he offers in his well-known restaurant. It can be tiny things, like massaging the octopus 45 minutes instead of 30 minutes to make it more tender for the sushi or improving the rice’s consistency each year a bit more. There is a constant strive for perfection. And while at times this might seem a bit extreme, there is a great underlying principle lying below: a humble attitude, a commitment to a task, and the willingness to keep learning.

The Japanese term kaizen, which stands for “change for the better” or a “continuous improvement,” expresses this attitude beautifully. It originated in the business environment in Japan after World War II and was influenced by American business-advisory teams that had come to Japan to talk about quality management after the war had left many Japanese companies destroyed and people’s morale devastated.

Masaaki Imai, the founder of the Kaizen Institute, who coined the term kaizen, says that the message of kaizen is that no day should go by without some type of improvement. At that time, the principle was mainly directed at company improvements (Toyota is one of the companies that successfully applied the kaizen principle.) Over the years, kaizen has also become well-known in athletic and personal development circles.

Little steps and improvements for great results

Instead of striving for immediate perfection, it promotes the tiny, sometimes almost imperceptible behavioral changes that can lead to significant progress in the long term. Even minimal steps in our habits or routines toward an improvement we seek can be one of the best ways to start to change or to create new habits. The famous American life coach, Martha Beck, refers to these steps as ‘turtle steps’. What could be a tiny, easy step for you to take today to get a little closer to one of your dreams or aspirations?

For example, if you would like to implement a better morning routine, a tiny step could consist in laying out the clothes for the next day the night before or getting up ten minutes earlier to have some time to breathe, to do a little mediation or a gratitude practice. Or to just enjoy a warm shower before the morning hustle sets in. Of course, it is possible to build upon that with time, but the smaller the first step, the easier it will be to change your habits for the better.

And the kaizen concept, encouraging us to become better in different areas in our life not immediately but gradually and consistently with incremental steps, can be a helpful tool on our personal development journeys.