Today I want to discuss a principle that I found to be not only interesting but immensely helpful to our company. Kaizen is a Japanese word that loosely translates as “good change.” It is an approach to have continuous improvement in all areas of a business and in life. If you do not look ahead and want to get better, then the competition will pass you by and your life will not get better. Small changes each day and week accumulate over time. A 1% weekly improvement is over 50% a year!
Just over two years ago when I took over sole ownership of Calyx, I implemented our process of Kaizen. The first and most important part of this process was to change the people who work for Calyx. 90% of the Team is either new to the company, returned to work with us again or have new roles at Calyx. Although this has been disruptive and has taken a lot of time and effort to train everybody in their new positions, it has worked!! We have accumulated a skilled and passionate team of individuals, and their dedication shows though on each project.
When we began Kaizen, there were a lot of deferred maintenance, bills, relationships that had soured and tools, equipment and trucks that needed attention. I took great efforts to work with my new team to remedy all of the above. We are now working on our processes as a company. We recognize that in order to deliver a great client experience, we need to be consistently developing and upgrading our methods. Our current focus is streamlining our scheduling procedures.
Each day we make strides towards efficiency and advancement. Our entire Team is involved in the process of Kaizen, with a unified goal to provide top-quality workmanship and exceptional experiences to our clients. We still have a long way to go. We are not perfect, by a long shot, but with Kaizen in place, we will get there.
Take care,
Bob
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