In manufacturing, Kaizen events have been all the rage for some time now. If I over-simplify a concept that’s had numerous books written on it, the essence of the definition of the term, Kaizen is working on continuous improvement. The use of “zen” within the word is also notable, as that describes a
However, a lot of people mean to talk about Kaizen, and really pronounce it as Kaizan. That actually describes falsifying and tampering with something. I’ve also heard people define this by describing a sort of chaotic state that comes from the tampering.
So…
- If Kaizen is all about continuous improvement, and…
- if Kaizan is all about having a chaotic state because of tampering with something, then…
- Perhaps all the people who pronounce it wrong are really part of the problem that caused the need for improvement in the first place!
(Trust me, people in manufacturing are gonna love that line of thinking. And now all the IT people following my blog have something to chat about with them the next time you get pulled into redesiging an application because someone else came up with a way to improve it. Just make sure that it wasn’t a Kaizan that got them to their Kaizen.)
More info on getting your zen’s and zan’s straight can be found here.
What people here are saying…