Learn What the True Meaning of Kaizen is - YouTube

Alright. Well, I'm Brad and I am Gemba Researchers Japan Managing Partner. And you may be, I'm

here to give you a lesson on Kaizen with Japanese characters. You may be wondering to yourself,

how come you don't look like you're Japanese. You look like you're Caucasian. You don't

feel like you really know what you are talking about. Well, I actually grew up in Japan.

I was actually born there. I grew up there. I was made in Japan. I went to a normal Japanese

school. I was the only white kid among 900 other people that had black hair. And so I

went through Japan and the school system. I then was an interpreter for Japanese consultants

and now I am actually a consultant in Japan, teaching Japanese about Lean. So what do you

figure about that.

Anyways, I'm hoping today we will learn the Japanese characters. It will give us a

deeper understanding and a deeper appreciation for these concepts and how it applies to us.

So, hopefully you can wow your friends and enjoy your Kaizen journey with us. So our

first, our first letter will be Kaizen, since that's the basis of Lean and it's made up

of two characters. Okay. So this one is kai, alright that's kai and

this means change. I will put change there. That's the English equivalent. This one here

is zen, and some of you guys may be wondering oh I don't like to get into that whole Buddha

stuff. Don't worry it's the same word, but doesn't mean that. This means good.

So, you often hear of change for the better, that's where people get this from, is Kaizen.

So that's just the start. Now it gets really exciting.

So, I want you to notice. You see there are two different sides to this character, so

the way these things are structured is normally two or three things. Each one has a meaning.

So here is where it divides up. Okay. This one here, this means myself or yourself. This

one here, I'll let you take a, this one is actually a picture and this is a picture of

someone's back after it's been whipped. That makes no sense right. Well this means

whip. So this is change guys. So for all you Lean

people out there, what I tell them is, you know what guys, I'm not here to beat you

up, that's your job. You change yourself. So, that's a very nice way of explaining

it, right? So that's change. Kai.And we also use this word for revolution, let's say.

So it's not a small change it's a big

change. This one here is a little bit difficult. We'll try to divide it up and that's just

divided up like that. That's just divided. This one here, I know it's kind of hard, but

this one means like a sheep or a lamb or a goat, if you will. You'll never guess what

this is. I didn't either until I studied this stuff, but this is an altar. Okay. So

just like you sacrifice a lamb on an altar, it's

sacrifice. That's good. Okay. So anyways, that's how it started. The sacrifice is

good, good for God, good for the people who are doing it.

So if you learn Kaizen, this is kind of interesting, isn't it? So whip yourself and it's a sacrifice.

So the way I explain it is, this is what you do, it's not my job to convince you, that's

your job, and everyone of you guys will be called to make a sacrifice. When it is, just

be willing to make it. We all have to make some sacrifices for the betterment of everybody

else. It's not all about what's good for me, but what's good for the whole group.

The best way is you make a small sacrifice to make that happen.