Sal Paradise wrote:How many companies outside of those owned by the Japanese actually have Kaizen programs or programs of continual improvement.?
This is far too glib; I work in the H&S Care sector - the private bit - and continuous improvement is very much part of the culture across the sector. I'd suggest that's driven by increased regulation - and a need to demonstrate improved outcomes to justify our use of public money.
Kaizen as a formal process however, doesn't deliver anywhere near so well in knowledge work as it does in manufacturing - which is where it came from; it's likely that since we don't manufacture much any more in the UK and our economy is much more reliant on the service sector, the application of Kaizen by managers who undertake an MBA and get all excited when they study it, is less effective in the modern world of work. To suggest that modern companies don't practice continuous improvement however, is just silly; to suggest that they don't use Kaizen methods is probably true though - and rightly so.