Everyday Office Jargon · Executive level

"Kaizen"

"Kaizen" is a Japanese business philosophy centered on continuous, incremental improvement, applied regularly by everyone in an organization rather than in large one-time overhauls.

Say this instead: continuous improvement

How "Kaizen" shows up at work

Borrowed from lean manufacturing and adopted enthusiastically by consultants and ops teams who want a single word that implies both discipline and wisdom. Used well, it describes a genuine practice. Used loosely, it describes any meeting where someone suggested doing something slightly better.

Buzzword

Our operations team runs weekly Kaizen sessions to surface small inefficiencies in the process.

Plain English

Our operations team runs weekly improvement sessions to surface small inefficiencies in the process.

Corporate Rank: Executive · Category: Everyday Office Jargon

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