For instance, at least in these dim days we're not hearing constantly about how we all need to be devoted to "continuous improvement."
What a tiresome, nagging mother-in-law that jargon was.
Especially when we knew all along that human nature is long periods of complacency punctuated by sporadic improvement at the point of a knife, followed by a return to relative sloth.
But then, that's a rather clunky name for a management fad.
Hey Toyota: I got your kaizen right here.
Continuous improvement is still very much alive in higher education. In fact, my institution participates in an accreditation program that purportedly “infuses the principles and benefits of continuous improvement into the culture of colleges and universities” blah blah blah. I’ve only been here a short time so I can’t say for sure, but my impression is that as tiresome and nagging as it may be, it is no more so than the accreditation processes that went before.
But I’m the leading Proust scholar in the world!
Ah, but we detected a hiccup in the continuity of your improvement ….
David – let’s not mistake “continuous improvement” for “continual improvement.” It’s really the latter that is the point of Lean, Six Sigma, Baldrige, Deming, etc., which is closer to your human nature-based definition.
It’s just another of those words that is misused, then reflexively commandeered for all eternity.
As to the concept – businesses have found out that it’s bloody difficult to make the hard decisions that CI demands. You have to exit low performers every year, measure obsessively and push for ever-increasing productivity. Outside of manufacturing and office systems process re-engineering, you hit a point at which you cannot improve )99 44/100ths percent)>
There are, however, many organizations who could benefit from a dose of CI medicine.
“There are, however, many organizations who could benefit from a dose of CI medicine.”
And they WILL improve, from my medicine: “sporadic improvement at the point of a knife.”
I’d love to have on my tombstone:
Here Lies Murray,
Dead and Unmoving.
He’d Like it Known—
In Life, He Was
Continuously Improving.
…And then Murray was Exited.
Not to lead this down a whole other path, but when did “exit” become a transitive verb? (as in Sean’s “exit low performers” line.) I can’t keep up with the businessification of the English language anymore.
Take it easy, Rueben.
Sean, take “exit” back and say you’re sorry.
My task for today? To finish my three-page article on Lean in our manufacturing company. Oh, it’s alive and well. Trust me.
Good poem.