I drive a 2005 Toyota Camry with 156k miles. She goes by Cammie. She has never let me down and still runs as smooth as the first time I drove her almost five years ago. Toyota has been known for decades as one of the greatest car manufactures in the world, but this wasn't always the case. In fact, when competing against GM back in 1985, Toyota was no where near the success they are today (selling under 1 million cars per year to GM's 7.5 million). However, through their commitment to continuous improvement (a term known as kaizen), Toyota developed one of the greatest manufacturing processes of all time that ultimately led to their current market dominance.
The Toyota Production System (TPS) has become the industry model for consistently reviewing processes and stretching them to maximize ROI and overall results. As mentioned, it is powered by the mantra of kaizen, as they consistently look at ways to make improvements on their current process to get better. As we live our lives daily, we could learn much from this system by implementing its overall philosophy and various tenements of it into our life structure for consistent growth and success.
GET EVERYONE INVOLVED
In TPS, everyone from executive level presidents to shop floor employees are encouraged to identify how to make the business better. Shop floor employees are encouraged daily to make suggestions to management about how they could improve the process to grow the productivity of the plant. In our daily lives, we need to utilize the guidance of those closest to us (family members, friends, co-workers) to ask for their advice and help at times with our own personal growth. These individuals often have insights into your character that could be very enlightening and helpful to allowing you to change different things about yourself that you may not be aware. While I'm not saying that you have to take everything others suggest to you as the gospel, being open to listen and learn from others can pay huge dividends in receiving helpful advice from unsuspected places.
CONTINUOUS ASSESSMENT
In TPS, the most important aspect of the improvement model is that it is continuous. You never want to be in a place in which you feel that you have "arrived" or are comfortable. Even though Toyota may have achieved record breaking productivity numbers the previous quarter, they are still looking for ways to get better. You have to daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly assess where you are in your life. What do you have that is working and what is not? How can you do better tomorrow than today? Next week than last week? And so on and so on. Often during the course of the work week and life, we get caught up in our task and forget to actually take time to assess where we are and work to get better. This can take place at the end of the cycle or beginning, but it is often helpful to put some defined times around when you will do this or it can easily fall through the cracks.
NOTHING IS OFF LIMITS
While assessing the process, Toyota employees are encouraged to make any suggestions they think are helpful, regardless of what this may mean to the current process. This can often lead to challenges to previously established and accepted practices. In life, we have to be open and honest with ourselves about what is and isn't work. Sometimes we make decisions in our lives that seem like the right thing at the time, but as times and circumstances change, these decisions are often not the best the current places we may be in each of our lives. This doesn't mean that we just decide to do away with everything in our lives that may be a little challenging, but that we shouldn't NOT consider all avenues when trying to maximize happiness and success in our lives. There may be people, jobs, or previous commitments in our lives that we need to question if they are making our lives better or worse. If the decision is definitively worse, you need to plan an exit strategy ASAP to remove these things and begin to move forward with progress.
In life, we often don't make all the correct choices the first time around and live the exact life that we dream every day. However, by applying the TPS philosophy of kaizan, we can work to create the future that we desire. By considering advice from all angles, continuously assessing what is and isn't working, and having a no "off limits" mentality to improvement, we will put ourselves on the path to lasting success and happiness. It worked for Toyota and I'm sure it will work for you.
No comments:
Post a Comment