Hello and welcome to Business 300.

My name is Philip Kulenshov and this is 300 seconds about business.

We're all a busy people, so I have five minutes or less to get my point across.

Start your timer. 300 seconds.

Some of you might be familiar with the concept of lean manufacturing or the Toyota production system.

In this Japanese manufacturing approach, there's a concept called Kaizan, which is typically translated as continual improvement,

putting an effort to keep making things better.

This is good.

But I think it's helpful to break down the meaning of Kai Zen to understand the concept a bit better.

There's more gold to mine from it than simply continuous improvement.

The Japanese word Kai Zen is composed of two separate kanji or symbols, Kai and Zen.

The kanji Kai translated translated directly, means change.

And the kanji Zen means goodness or virtue.

So a little more than just continual improvement, Kai Zen is change for the good.

There is a specific standard that you are improving towards, and it requires you to change.

You're working towards a state of virtue, peace, and goodness.

You see things that are non-conforming with that standard, and so you change them.

Change for the good.

This is better and more vivid than continual improvement.

However, we can break down the kanji a bit more to understand the concept further.

Each kanji is made up of radicals or roots.

The radicals are characters and strokes that convey an idea.

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