Kaizen is the philosophy of continual improvement. Its premise is that small changes over a long period of time can really add up. Kaizen has been central to my personal and profession al life for over 10 years now. It’s so important to me that I have the Japanese symbol for kaizen tattooed on my wrist. I also got the tattoo is upside down, because it didn’t matter to me if other people could read it. The tattoo was for me. The upside down characters means that ever time I look at my wrist, I see the Japanese characters for Kaizen staring me in the face. It’s a constant reminder to me that I can always improve, no matter where I find myself.

As creative people, we have to allow ideas to evolve. Our first attempt at a creative solution is typically really rough. We get the gist of what we want across, but there’s a lot of details that just aren’t quite right. Here, the philosophy of Kaizen pushes us toward elaborating on our ideas: Taking what’s working and magnifying them and eliminating what’s not working so that each new generation of your idea becomes stronger and stronger.

It’s easy to apply Kaizen early on in the creative process because ideas are typically really flawed early on. The first version of a book your writing will have obvious problems that require your attention.

What’s not so easy is applying Kaizen after you’ve established yourself. This is where Kaizen has the most benefit to your creative projects. While most people get to a minimally viable product and call it quits, highly creative people push further. Whereas the beginner makes big, obvious improvements until a project is “good enough,” the highly creative person continues long past when the beginner gives up. These small changes can make a huge difference.

One of the best uses of Kaizen in business is what’s commonly used in Japan. It’s called Kaizen Teian (spelled TEIAN). At its core, this is a simple suggestion box, but it’s vital to Japanese companies. This is a bottom-up approach to Kaizen, asking employees what can be done better, but it only works in companies where there’s a consistent culture that focuses employees in a specific direction. Asking employees “how can we be better” isn’t actionable. There are tons of ways to be better, and many of them are contradictory.

American Airlines adopted a Kaizen Teian system years ago and it worked beautifully. They used to be one of the worst-ranked airlines in the US, but now they’re constantly ranked one of the best. American Airlines created a culture of cost-savings. Their employees know exactly what their company stood for and what it means to improve. This gave everyone a clear vision. Because the company valued cost-savings so highly, employees were focused on small improvements that would save tiny bits of money here and there. Using the Kaizen Teian approach, the airline received 17,109 suggestions that ended up saving the company over 43 million dollars. What’s remarkable is how unremarkable the changes were. One of the suggests used was to eliminate grapefruit juice on flights. This was genius. Not because it saved the company money, but because nobody likes grapefruit juice. Grapes are delicious. Fruit is wonderful. Grapefruit is nasty crap. American Airlines got to save money by not offering grapefruit juice on their flights, and customers were more comfortable knowing that they were at least 35,000 feet away from the nearest grapefruit. It was a win-win.

With such great results, why isn’t Kaizen Teian used more often? A large part of it has to do with your focus. American Airlines succeeded because they were consistently focused on cost savings. Contrast this with how most companies reward employee suggestions, with money.

American companies pay more money for employee suggestions and use far fewer as a percentage. In America, only 38% of suggestions are ever implemented, but in Japan, that number is more than double, around 90%. This gives employee a clear reason to engage with the suggestion box in the first place. Why place your suggestion in the box if it’s not likely to matter? This is exactly what we see in the statistics. When one is available, around 11% of American employees use the Kaizen system. That number is 74% in Japan. When the head office listens, people are inspired to take action. This is why a company like Toshiba averages around 1 usable suggestion every 5 days. That kind of small change has huge implications over a long period of time.

But what about rewards? If we rewarded employees more, wouldn’t they be more motivated to make improvements? Not necessarily. Motivations are extrinsic rewards. Without a clear vision, there’s no way of telling a good idea from a bad one. On average, American companies pay over 100 times more money for useful suggestions than Japanese companies, $458 as opposed to a mere $3.88. It’s not the money. It’s the combination of having a head office that responds to suggestions and, more importantly, having a culture that is focused on a specific outcome… a culture the employees feel a part of. Focus is key. People can’t help you if they don’t know where they’re going.

Small changes make a huge difference over time. As creative people, we go through times where we have revolutionary ideas and times where we have evolutionary ones. Sometimes a spark of genius hits us and we create something incredibly unique, but between those moments of insight, our job is to apply the Kaizen principle and allow ideas to evolve. If you’re only only waiting for revolutionary ideas, you’ll likely never have one. It’s only through consistently working to improve yourself and your creativity that you train your brain what to look for. If you want to be as focused on an objective as the employees of American Airlines, you need to train your brain what to look for. You need to feed your brain a consistent message and bury it into your subconscious. Not simply “This is what I’ll do right now,” but “This is WHO I AM.” This is what Kaizen does so extraordinarily well. Consistently improving on ideas and focusing on development teaches your subconscious brain not only what the problem IS, but also that it’s important and worth solving. This turns creative from a passive experience into an active one where no matter where you are in a project, you can take an important step towards your goal. These small evolutions add up over time, not just to a great creative product, but they eventually lead to the revolutionary ideas that we are seeking.

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