IN this 300th column (thank you, BusinessMirror, for this milestone!), I will touch upon a topic close to my heart as this has been a part of my work and advocacy on association management.
The term kaizen is a fusion of two Japanese words that translate to “good change” or “change for the better.” Eventually, kaizen has evolved to mean “continuous improvement,” becoming a Japanese business philosophy that entails people involvement and productivity in a gradual and methodical process.
I personally experienced the kaizen way years ago when I attended the “Executive Corporate Management Program” in Tokyo, Japan, organized by the Association of Overseas Technical Scholarship, now Association for Overseas Technical Cooperation and Sustainable Partnerships (AOTS).
Kaizen was known to be first adopted in Japanese businesses after World War 2, partly influenced by American business and quality-management practitioners, and mostly by “The Toyota Way,” a set of guiding principles anchored on respect for people and continuous improvement. Kaizen has since spread throughout the world and has been applied to environments other than business and productivity.
So what can associations learn from kaizen? Here are a few ideas based on each of the kaizen principles developed by the Kaizen Institute founded by Masaaki Imai, known as the father of continuous improvement.
1. Know Your Customer. This means creating customer value by identifying their interests to enhance their experience. Associations have been adopting this principle to attract, engage with, and retain their members. A tweak of this could be KYM or “know your member,” focusing to having a “We are here to serve you” culture.
2. Let It Flow. This refers to targeting zero waste by making everyone in the organization aim to create value and eliminate waste. While not exactly as literal, “letting it flow” in the context of an association could mean putting its resources to good use by undertaking relevant programs and activities and those that create value to members.
3. Go to Gemba. This relates to following the action and going where things actually happen since true value is created there. (Gemba means “the actual place” in Japanese.) In the case of an association, this could be “being where your members are,” e.g., being in social media channels if they are there, or organizing events that promotes peer learning and delivers networking opportunities.
4. Empower People. This deals with organizing teams by setting the same goals for them and providing them with a system and set of tools to use. One of the outstanding characteristics of thriving associations is having a team culture and a data-driven strategy to go with it.
5. Be Transparent. This pertains to showing the real data as performance and making improvements tangible and visible. In the context of an association, this could relate to fully disclosing to its stakeholders—board, staff, members and volunteers—the state of the organization, including programming and financial reports. Transparency is one of the hallmarks of good governance.
The implementation of these five kaizen principles in an organization is fundamentally important to have a successful continuous improvement culture and to mark a turning point in the progression of quality, productivity, and worker-management relations.
Octavio Peralta is currently the executive director of the Global Compact Network Philippines and founder and volunteer CEO of the Philippine Council of Associations and Association Executives (PCAAE), the “association of associations.” The PCAAE is holding its Associations Summit 10 (AS10) on November 23 and 24, 2022. E-mail: bobby@pcaae.org