Site Logo
The Spirit of Kaizen: Creating Lasting Excellence One Small Step at a Time – Robert Maurer
Non-fiction / 1st July 2020

Introduction Why The Spirit of Kaizen? As I found another book of the author to be helpful, I decided to see what he offers in the business field. Furthermore, I would like to find ways to improve workplace and my leadership skill. Author I have written about the author in another article. You can refer to it here. Contents The Spirit of Kaizen contains 8 chapters and an appendix. The chapters are 1) A Swift Introduction to Kaizen, 2) Boost Morale, 3) Cut Costs, 4) Improve Quality, 5) Develop New Products and Services, 6) Increase Sales, 7) Reduce Health-Care Expenses, and 8) When Small Steps Are Too Hard: What to Do. The appendix is Reflections on Kaizen and contains quotes of famous people about small improvements work. Review The author mentions that there are two ways to improvement: innovation and kaizen. What are the difference between these two techniques? Innovation requires a radical change, immediate rethink of the status quo while kaizen asks for small, doable steps toward improvement. By taking small steps, we will be able to bypass the amygdala and the associated fight-or-flight response. That is the reason why it is easier to take action with kaizen than…

One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way – Robert Maurer
Non-fiction / 16th May 2020

Introduction One Small Step Can Change Your Life is a book about kaizen. My purpose of reading this book is to learn the way to use kaizen to realize personal dreams, as stated in the preface of this book. Author Robert Maurer is a Director of Behavioral Sciences for the Family Practice Residency Program at Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center and a faculty member with the UCLA School of Medicine. He also runs a consulting firm known as The Science of Excellence. He has contributed his knowledge of personal happiness and success to corporations, hospital patients and staff, theatrical companies, and the British government. Content One Small Step Can Change Your Life has a preface and 8 chapters. The chapters are 1) Why Kaizen Works, 2) Ask Small Questions, 3) Think Small Thoughts, 4) Take Small Actions, 5) Solve Small Problems, 6) Bestow Small Rewards, 7) Identify Small Moments, and 8) Kaizen for Life. Review First of all, let’s see the author’s definition of kaizen. Kaizen is small steps for continual improvement. Contrast this to innovation which is a drastic process of change. These are the two major strategies humans use to create change. Nonetheless, innovation frequently leads to failure in…