In my experience, the rise and fall of kaizen success seems to coincide with the vision, commitment, and level of it’s leadership. From this I can deduce that from the highest position in the company there must be a healthy understanding of kaizen of its principles. If this is not the case, it remains in name only and often a “knee-jerk” reaction (as opposed to actual continuous reduction of departure from the ideal) or it is applied locally to work cells by zealous employees and not to production as a whole.

Most of us could name many important leadership qualities, but as to ones that encourage kaizen to “take root”, I’m afraid I am drawing a blank. All I can ponder is leadership that builds incentive for acheivement from the bottom up.

In my own company we seem to have improved quality in certain areas with an “ownership mentality”. I have not discovered what the tangables of that phrase are. It was just recently mentioned. Have you given any more thought to leadership behaviors? Sorta stumped here.

So take it to another level. What leadership behaviors make the difference between kaizen improvements taking hold on their own; or kaizen improvements deteriorating?

Corrie? I imagine you are reading this. What do you think?

1. Make sure everything you say honors your listener and avoids sandpaper-like attitudes.

2. When appropriate, appeal to your listeners three greatest internal motivating factors (desire for improvement, fear of failure that your idea affects, and desire for respect)

3. Follow this outline:

a. Grab the listener’s attention with as strong
a hook as you can think of. (Use word to generate pictures in their mind.)

b. Describe the problems your idea can fix.

c. Build curiosity frequently to increase your audiences attention span.

d. Use vivid pictoral words to make your point or proposition clear and unforgettable. Use your idea’s benefits list and predetermined skeptik’s FAQ in forming your presentation.

e. Use experiences of other credible sources to increase the credibility of your claims.

f. Respectfully use comparisons to other ideas to exceed people’s expectations.

g. Quickly summarize your plan for action. Give a risk-reward comparison, a reason to move swiftly, and at last, a call to action.

I don’t see this done often enough, causing very good ideas and otherwisee possibly effective leaders fall through the cracks or swept under the rug. Just a tidbit you or your readers might consider food for thought.