TL;DR: Kaizen is a continuous improvement approach where everyone in an organization makes small, ongoing changes to eliminate waste, improve quality, and strengthen performance. Over time, these incremental improvements create major gains in efficiency, employee engagement, and results.

“All changes, even positive ones, are scary. Attempts to reach goals through radical or revolutionary means often fail because they heighten fear. But the smalls steps of Kaizen disarm the brain’s fear response, stimulating rational thought, and creative play."

One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way – Robert Maurer Ph.D.

The word Kaizen comes from the Japanese words for “Good” and “Change.” In businesses and other organizations, Kaizen refers to activities that continually improve all processes and involve every employee from the executive team to front line workers. Kaizen, as a foundational business philosophy, was first embraced by Japanese manufactures after the Second World War.

The term Kaizen became known around the world through the works of Masaaki Imai. He pend the groundbreaking book KAIZEN™: The Key to Japan’s Competitive Success.

Masaaki Imai described Kaizen simply. “Kaizen means to find a better way and revise the current standard. Thus, maintaining and improving the standard becomes the main task of management.”

Core Principles

Kaizen isn’t a prescription for improvement; instead, it is a way of seeing the world. It is the basis of many improvement methodologies, including Six Sigma, Lean Manufacturing, and the Toyota Production System. The most essential principles of Kaizen are:

• Every process can be improved
• Continuous improvement is necessary to be competitive
• Defects and failures are most often the fault of imperfect processes, not people
• Every member of the organization must have a role in improvement
• Small changes can have an enormous impact

As Imai put it, “The starting point for improvement is to recognize the need. This comes from the recognition of a problem. If no problem is recognized, there is no recognition of the need for improvement. Complacency is the archenemy of Kaizen.”

There are also five instructions of Kaizen:

• Know your customer – Identify their interests so that you can enhance their experience.
• Let it flow – Everyone in the organization should aim to create value and eliminate waste.
• Go to the Gemba – Value is created in the places where work is done. Leaders should go there.
• Be transparent – Performance improvements should be tangible and visible.
• Empower people – Set goals for teams and give them the tools to achieve them.

Kaizen in the Wild

To understand what happens when the Kaizen mindset takes hold, we spoke with some of our clients about their experiences with continuous improvement. Here’s what they shared:

“We’re a 220-bed community hospital,” Brian Deiter, CEO of Mary Greenly Medical Center, said. “We just want to make it simple – let’s get the people closest to the work involved in improving the work. And if we do that over and over again, we do it daily, one of the things we’ve said is we want to get better at getting better.”

Jonathan M. Bykowski, of Array Architects, thinks about Kaizen this way, “It’s a goal that everyone feels empowered and prepared to question their work processes and implement change. We want to be a culture of structured experimentation every day.”

Here are others sharing the kinds of improvements their Kaizen program inspires:

Laura Roe, CFO of TBM Carriers, a long haul trucking company, shared how adhering to the principles of Kaizen can impact the bottom line, “We made a project to reduce our fuel costs, which is probably one of our largest expenses in the company. What was important was not only the negotiations, but also getting our drivers to go to the right fuel stations. We’ve seen so far about $100,000 per month in savings - about a $1.2 million savings per year - from that project.”

Hopefully, this brief introduction to Kaizen has been helpful. It is a brilliantly simple way to capitalize on the wisdom and creativity of each individual to implement small changes that have a significant impact. All of the publications we’ve mentioned in this post are excellent resources for a deeper dive.

Turning Kaizen Into Daily Practice

Kaizen delivers its greatest impact when it becomes part of everyday work rather than an occasional initiative. Organizations that sustain improvement treat Kaizen as a management system — one that empowers employees to identify problems, experiment with solutions, and refine processes continuously.

Leaders play a critical role by creating an environment where improvement is expected, supported, and recognized. When teams see that small ideas lead to real changes, engagement grows, trust strengthens, and the organization develops the capability to adapt faster than competitors.

Sustaining Kaizen also requires structure. Clear methods for capturing ideas, prioritizing opportunities, and following through on improvements ensure that progress doesn’t depend on individual effort alone. Over time, these systems transform continuous improvement from a program into a way of working.

Ultimately, Kaizen is not about making a single breakthrough change. It is about building an organization that improves every day — one small step at a time — and gains a lasting advantage through the collective creativity of its people.

Frequently Asked Questions About Kaizen

What does Kaizen mean in Japanese?
Kaizen comes from the Japanese words “kai” (change) and “zen” (good), meaning “change for the better” or continuous improvement through small, ongoing improvements.

Is Kaizen only used in manufacturing?
No. While Kaizen originated in manufacturing, it is now widely used in healthcare, finance, government, technology, retail, and service organizations to improve processes, quality, and performance.

What is the main goal of Kaizen?
The goal of Kaizen is to continuously improve processes by eliminating waste, improving quality, increasing efficiency, and engaging employees at all levels in problem-solving.

How is Kaizen different from innovation?
Kaizen focuses on small, incremental improvements made continuously, while innovation often involves larger, breakthrough changes. Successful organizations use both approaches to drive progress.

Why is employee involvement important in Kaizen?
Employees closest to the work understand problems and opportunities best. Involving them leads to better solutions, stronger engagement, and a culture where improvement becomes part of everyone’s job.