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The (Kai)Zen of Incremental Improvement

Over the past few decades in North America, many Eastern philosphies and concepts have slowly filtered their way into the lives of a wide array of people. One such concept is kaizen. The term kaizen refers to improvement by slow degrees. While the word itself is Japanese, the concept comes from the Chinese book of wisdom, the Tao te Ching (dao der ching). The Tao is an older discipline than Buddhism, but some of its concepts, including kaizen, have been adapted and adopted by Buddhism.

Unfortunately, kaizen is one of those buzzwords being thrown around for the past couple of years. And when something is fashionable, it often loses credibility with the general populace. But despite it being fashionable, it’s a simple principle that will serve you well in all your life’s endeavours.

It simply says that if you want to improve anything - self, business, products, services - you should do so slowly and steadily, if you want the results to stick. This applies to any discipline, to self-improvement, to personal relationships.

For example, if you have an idea for a piece of software, but only have enough time and budget to release an initial edition, that’s okay. Release the software with a limited number of features, all of which work and suit your intended customers’ needs. Then improve the feature set slowly and steadily, as you are able.

You might think that the needs of the marketplace and the cutthroat nature of competition means that you need to add all of your intended features now. But consider that a piece of software for which only half the features work isn’t going to be highly regarded. And that’s more true today, with the Internet changing product lifecycles. However, with the Internet, you can actually afford to hold back on incomplete features, then release new versions online, giving existing paid customers access to upgrades under a variety of payment options.

If you are an athlete, it’s very likely that you already use the principles of kaizen without even realizing it. In the mid-1970s, while in my mid-teens, I started reading self-improvement books and found that many applications of Eastern concepts were introduced to North America to coaches training athletes.

Consider: if you currently run a 12-minute mile, there is no way you could expect to run a 4-minute mile just by trying a little harder. There are many efficiencies of stride that you need to adopt. You need to change your diet, and build up stamina. In short, you need to improve your performance slowly and steadily. While you might be able to suddenly realize some large gains, they will probably be transient gains if they are not built up organically.

Now suppose that you own a business. You have a plan to offer a set of new services, but are constrained in your ability to offer them all at them same time while simultaneously maintaining the quality. You might feel that offering them all at once gives you the scoop on competitors, and makes you a force to be reckoned with. But if you offer something that you cannot possibly feel good about (quality) nor support properly, then you do your customers a disfavour and stand to lose them. And any edge that you gain from beating your competitors to the punch will be short-lived. If customers are unhappy with the quality, how long do you think they’ll stay with you?

It is thus better to offer only that which you are proud of, initially, then add other services and products as you are able. It may take longer to realize large profits, but the credibility and satisfaction you gain from customers for your quality will be built organically and thus will be long-lived.

The same principles apply to relationship and personal development, even weight loss. You can make rapid changes in your life, but they are rarely long-lasting. People tend to rebound to the environment that they are comfortable with. So when you change your environment slowly, steadily, organically, its easier to become comfortable with the mild changes over an extended period of time. If you’re worried about not changing yourself quickly enough to, say, save a relationship, don’t be. Others will notice the small changes in you, whether consciously or subconsciously. But doing things completely out of character is even more noticeable and likely to be distrusted no matter how well-intentioned. Small changes will just appear to be part of the natural course of events and thus much more acceptable.

Easy does it, then.

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