“Everyday improvement, everybody improvement, everywhere improvement.” That was Masaaki Imai’s, ahem, improvement on his earlier English translation of kaizen (which you can see in this video). Sadly, even though we’ve been preaching from this hymnal for more than 30 years, most organizations have a long way to go before the kaizen spirit is truly woven into its DNA.
Perhaps there’s a better way to get people to embrace the concept.
In a new strategy + business article, Theodore Kinni argues that we should “restore craft to work.” Kinni uses Richard Sennett’s description of craftsmanship from his book The Craftsman:
Craftsmanship names an enduring, basic human impulse, the desire to do a job well for its own sake. Craftsmanship cuts a far wider swath than skilled manual labor; it serves the computer programmer, the doctor, and the artist; parenting improves when it is practiced as a skilled craft, as does citizenship. In all of these domains, craftsmanship focuses on objective standards, on the thing in itself.
Kinni argues that companies have been undermining craftsmanship since the Industrial Revolution. That’s probably an overly broad claim, but it’s certainly true that the deskilling of assembly work in mass production, along with a growing gulf between management and labor, and a focus on stock price, hasn’t led to an appreciation of craftsmanship.
If we step away from the linguistic flotsam and jetsam that consultants and leaders too often dump on their employees—the “burning platforms,” the “lean transformations,” the “value stream organizations”—we could more easily use that “enduring, basic human impulse to do a job well” to ignite the kaizen spirit that resides in all of us. We might actually get our organizations to follow Imai’s injunction for improvement everyday, everybody, everywhere.
As Kinni points out, “the drive to find ingenious ways to do work better, faster, and/or cheaper is an integral element of craftsmanship.” He suggests that leaders should
recognize, and reward, craftsmanship. You get what you pay for. So, why not pay for a job well done? Maybe workers should be paid based on quality rather than volume.
Recognizing quality and improvement is a great idea, but I don’t agree with the idea of payment. Paying for improvement is a dicey plan. It can lead people to distort the system or distort the data, and typically substitutes extrinsic motivation (i.e., money) for the intrinsic motivation (joy in doing a good job) we’re trying to promote. Toyota famously pays very little for kaizen—and they seem to be doing a pretty good job at getting people to improve everyday. But payment can simply be public recognition—at Barry-Wehmiller, all of the team members at a location are invited to an elaborate award celebration, which often involve the winner’s family and special gifts reflecting his or her personality. And winners get to drive a unique vehicle (originally a Chevy SSR) for a week.
I don’t know if focusing on “craftsmanship” will increase awareness and practice of improvement. But in the spirit of kaizen, it’s worth a try.