Ignoring the broader context of history e.g.13:20 calendars, the long count, Baktun Cycles or harmonic waves, the Eastern Jamon, Yayoi or Edo periods, Rome, War, The Dark Ages and even the industrial revolution, from which there is much to be aware, philosophically, psychologically, culturally, scientifically and theologically, we have to acknowledge that there is confusion over the terminology and 'brands' being used to describe 'Change' in business today.

To start our minds on the path to 'context' regards recent events and evolutions we might challenge our understanding, our belief about what many today call 'Lean'.

(Sourced from various public domain information)

Toyota started in 1933 as a division of Toyoda Automatic Loom Works devoted to the production of automobiles under the direction of the founder's son, Kiichiro Toyoda. Its first vehicles were the A1 passenger car and the G1 in 1935.

Toyota Motor Co. was established as an independent and separate company in 1937

"Toyoda" (トヨダ ) is the family name of Kichiro Toyoda, the founder of the company

In September 1936, the company ran a public competition to design a new logo. Out of 27,000 entries the winning entry was the three Japanese katakana letters for "Toyoda" in a circle.

Risaburo Toyoda, who had married into the family and was not born with that name, preferred "Toyota" (トヨタ ) because it took eight brush strokes (a fortuitous number) to write in Japanese, was visually simpler (leaving off two ticks at the end) and with a voiceless consonant instead of a voiced one (voiced consonant is considered "murky" or "muddy" sound compared to the voiceless consonant, which is "clear").

Since "Toyoda" literally means "fertile rice paddies", changing the name also helped to distance the company from associations with old fashioned farming.

The newly formed word was trademarked and the company was registered in August 1937 as the "Toyota Motor Company".

From September 1947, Toyota's small-sized vehicles were sold under the name "Toyopet" (トヨペット).

The first vehicle sold under this name was the Toyopet SA but it also included vehicles such as the Toyopet SB light truck, Toyopet Stout light truck, Toyopet Crown and the Toyopet Corona.

However, when Toyota eventually entered the American market in 1957 wit

h the Crown, the name was not well received due to connotations of Toys and pets.

The name was soon dropped for the American market but continued in other markets until the mid 1960's.

1909 - Shigeo Shingo Born in Saga City, Japan.

1912 - Taiichi Ohno is born in Manchuria, China.

1924 - Shingo reads Toshiro Ikeda’s “The secret of eliminating unprofitable activities”.

1930 - Shingo Graduates from Yamanashi Technical College - starts work for the Taipei Railway Factory

1932 - Taiichi Ohno graduates from Nagoya Technical College, starts work with Toyota / Jiro Kakuda, Eng Lieutenant @ Yokosaka Navy Yard spends 2 months at the Gilbreth Institute, returning to instruct Horikome

1937 - Shingo is instructed on a two month sponsored training course in the “motion mind” concept of Ken’ichi Horikome – MD of Japan Management Association.

Late 40’s Early 50’s - following 20 years with Toyota, Ohno is given Assembly Shop Manager position - It was this period that foundations were developed and Taiichi Ohno is said to have been inspired by W.Edwards Deming, Piggly Wiggly's JIT distribution system and / or an army training program.

1955 - Shingo first works with Toyota

1969 - Shingo - 1000tonne press - SMED Improvements

1975 - Taiichi Ohno becomes Executive vice president

1977 - Taiichi Ohno realises Toyota’s Kanban system as Non-stock production and systemises it

The origins of the methodologies Toyota are now famous for are attributed to various sources, including training programs that evolved from the Japanese army, as a result of the influence of seeing practices common to 'Piggly Wiggly' and due to the inclusion of W.E. Demings influence. There is good reason to think that Taiichi Ohno, Shigeo Shingo and Deming, (Chinese, Japanese and American respectively) all bringing their own thought and cultures to bear on developments saw a blend of attitudes and approaches that led to the beneficial and deeply aware systems we know of, but still largely fail to replicate today.

Toyota's management philosophy 

...has evolved from the company's origins and has been reflected in the terms "Lean Manufacturing" and Just In Time Production, the latter, Toyota was instrumental in developing.

The Toyota Way has four components:

1. Long-term thinking as a basis for management decisions.
2. A process for problem-solving.
3. Adding value to the organization by developing its people.
4. Recognizing that continuously solving root problems drives organizational learning.

The Toyota Way incorporates the Toyota Production System (TPS).

You may recognise here that the basic 'cultural' requirements of 'a way of thinking' and 'developing' people have been historically and systematically underestimated in the west - notice that 'The Toyota Way' does not mention 'Profit', but only 'Value through people' - it is an inability to perceive this psychologically that has hindered sustainable profitable change to date and it is this 'Sense of purpose' that PCC delivers! 

(The use of the word 'Way' may be considered regards the translation of Tao (Dao) as in Taoism - 'The way'. It may also be suggested that the 'systemising' of process is a cultural influence from Confucian roots - providing a balance between Logic and Emotion - 'Finding the balance' is central to PCC).

Other terms that are directly or indirectly linked to TPS are;

1. Systems Thinking
2. Quality Circles
3. TQM
4. JIT
5. World Class
6. Lean
7. TOC (Theory of constraints)
8. Six Sigma
9. Operational Excellence

Lean was a term coined following Womack and Jones' studies that witnessed the publication of two books, 

'The machine that changed the world' and 'Lean Thinking'. (The latter being an indicator that 'thinking' is key, unfortunately this book failed to address the issue, seeing the phrase become a title only rather than an inherent part of the cultural approach).

William Edwards Deming - is largely attributed to the development of Toyota via his work with them and his development of SPC

Eli Goldratt - took the concept of Pareto and identifying bottlenecks to new heights with TOC

Bill Smith - took the principles of Demings SPC and Standard deviation to new heights when he developed Six Sigma

(other accounts today suggest the common history of Bill Smith as originator are accurate but not the whole story - some reports state that due to the wording used in regard to 'disclosure of proprietary information' in application for the Government created Malcolm Baldridge Award, Six Sigma wasn't actually the methodology Motorola used to realise the 10:1 improvement ratio achieved between 1980 and 1986 across the entire organisation, nor was it the method used when the same 10:1 improvement goal was set a 2nd and 3rd time from 1986 on - seeing a cumulative 1000:1 improvement by 1992. The actual approach was the Shainin® method. This wasn't disclosed and a training course developed by Dr Mikel J Harry saw the rest of the world 'copy' the six sigma method that had never been used at Motorola - of course, subsequent success stories have been reported since by very large organisations like GE and FedEx, but with the ambiguity that permeates all of standard business practice in the form of accounting reports based on assumption, there are many questions that might be asked to qualify such reports).

Deming recognised there was more to consider regards change in later years, 'Logic and SPC to control process' was no longer enough to maximise organisational performance, sustainability and profit. Quality as a mantra applies to people as much as process. This had been practiced in Toyota, but was hard to recognise due to issues of cultural translation. When Deming came to find the wisdom in much of what he had been involved with, he tried to formalise it in his 'System of Profound Knowledge' as described by our friend and published author Randy Schenkat, who worked with Deming directly.

(Randy is Director of the Winona Council for Quality in Minnesota, His Book, "Quality Connections - Transforming Schools through total quality management was published in 1993 by ASCD - Association for supervision and curriculum Development).

From another contact this was quoted...

"I worked with a Korean man in the late 1980's who showed me the characters of the word Kaizen in Korean and tried to explain to me that it was Chaos and Heaven. The belief is that life is energy and that we should always want to redirect negative energy to a positive outcome for all humanity."

This statement supports our understanding of the word Kaizen, and our understanding of the mechanics now understood via Neuroscience. Re-directing negative energy to positive may sound too much like 'soft-skills' and detached from ROI - more suited to an HR budget than an Operations budget (the behaviours that are provoked relative to our belief in budgeting and cost accounting also being part of the mindset we have to challenge) ....but hard and fast clinical trials are proving that this is exactly what we do when re-framing relative to meta-cognition - and it is this capability to enhance the associated benefits from the act of re-framing / redirecting (Skills that can be taught), that the TPS tools and techniques provide at a practical level (when understood from this perspective).

Understanding the brain and understanding the way the tools help the minds of our workforce and leaders realises a change in attitude and approach in those with the authority to approve a change program. In addition to being driven by fiscal results, this new depth of knowledge can also provoke the passion for the principles and philosophy that underpins this incredibly successful approach to business - where passion for change is embedded at this level, the changes made are considered systemically and strategically relative to people and process; thus a culture comfortable with change becomes sustainable.  

Kaizen 改 善

We all know and accept that this means ‘Continuous Improvement’, but, we suggest there is an alternative translation. 

‘On-Going Goodness / Benefit - No one person Gaining at another's expense’.

From Wikipedia we find;

The original kanji characters for this word are: 改 善. In Japanese this is pronounced "kaizen". 改 ("kai") means "change" or "the action to correct". 善 ("zen") means "good".

In Korean this is pronounced "ge sun" 改善 ("ge sun") means "improvement" or "change for the better" In Chinese this is pronounced "gai shan": 改善 ("gǎi shàn") means "change for the better" or "improve". 改 ("gǎi") means "change" or "the action to correct". 善 ("shàn") means "good" or "benefit".

"Benefit" is more related to the Taoist or Buddhist philosophy, which gives the definition as the action that 'benefits' the society but not one particular individual

(i.e., multilateral improvement). In other words, one cannot benefit at another's expense.

The quality of benefit that is involved here should be sustained forever, in other words the "shan" is an act that truly benefits others.

At first glance the two terms ‘Continuous Improvement’ and ‘On-Going Goodness’ may seem similar and many (left brain) logical arguments could, I’m sure, be presented to prove they fundamentally allude to the same end.

However the first fails to address the philosophical definition of ‘Good’, where the second directly addresses the perception of ‘good’ (relative to its continuation once definition is established [by individual or group]).

The failure to consider what is ‘Good’ has provided us with approx. 38years of Lean implementation that has largely proven to be unsustainable in the West, ignoring as it does, culture, comprising moral standards, virtues, ethics and attitudes toward responsibility.

This knowledge is in the public domain and yet today we still account for people as an 'overhead' i.e. a 'cost' rather than a creative source of generating revenue and efficiency!

PCC takes 'Lean' outside of the context of standard systems and the assumptions therein that unconsciously undermine developments at an individual and cultural level.

PCC provides the tools to fill the gap in the world of organisational change, that has gone unnoticed for decades. We look forward to helping you see 'Change' in a new context.