Even when Westerners and Japanese are talking about the same word 'continuous improvement', the meaning of this term is often understood quite differently and we usually fail to recognize the radical difference. The point of difference resides in the word 'continuous'. Westerners tend to understand the meaning of 'continuous' under the image of stairway while Japanese tend to understand it under the image of slope. The former understanding considers 'continuity' as continuity of improvement activity. Westerners understand that the 'continuous improvement' is to continue some improvement activities without stopping or giving it up, while they tend to think that the improved objects should be improved through several phases strictly defined in advance. As a result, when we draw a chart whose vertical axis shows how much the objects are improved and whose horizontal axis shows the elapsed time, the curve looks like a stairway divided into several steps clearly distinguished from each other. How the objects are improved is discontinuous in the Western notion of 'continuous improvement'. Western notion of 'continuous improvement' is the phased improvement through continuous activities.

On the other hand, Japanese consider the 'continuity' as that of improvement itself. Japanese understand that the 'continuous improvement' means that we can't improve anything in a way other than by improving it little by little. This 'little' is too little to be identified by us. This 'little' is, if we can say, differential. When we draw a chart just like described above, the chart always looks like a smooth slope with no clearly distinguished steps. This Japanese notion of 'continuous improvement' is based on the fundamental Japanese concept about how things change. As I describe in the other day's essay, Japanese tend to believe that everything has its own law or principle for changing itself and we, human-beings, can't control at our own will how the things will change. Japanese tend to believe that we should not artificially divide the continuum of flowing time by discontinuous phases that are artificially defined by human beings. The continuum of time in which everything is changing according to its own principle should not be arbitrarily divided into the moments or phases because, if we do so, we can't conserve the true and real change of things any more. If we artificially divide the continuum into phases, we lose the autonomous momentum for improvement of things. By the way, this concept of continuity is not only Japanese traditional concept but also some great Western thinkers, such as Henri Bergson and Gilles Deleuze, who criticize Western traditional concept of time, i.e. juxtaposition of artificially divided instants, by saying that such a time has already lost the true movement. But as you can observe everyday, there are still many Westerners who believe in the traditional Western concept of time because they don't know the fact that the traditional concept of time has been already thrown away by philosophers like Bergson since 100 years ago!

If we go back to the 'continuous improvement' in business sense, it is true that both Westerners and Japanese think that the process of continuous improvement should be controlled intentionally. But Westerners tend to control the improvement process with top-down style while Japanese tend to rely on the field workers in controlling the improvement process. In the top-down continuous improvement, the creativity of field workers is strictly excluded from the process and the whole improvement process is predefined and controlled by a group of relatively small number of people. This predefined process is often designed as a process with several predefined steps according to the traditional Western concept of time. Within each phase, several tasks are defined. All the field workers just have to follow the predefined process basically without any changes in order to realize the 'continuous improvement'. As long as the field workers follow the predefined process, Westerners believe that this process automatically improves the improvement target continuously. If they don't believe it, Westerners must have accepted that the field workers can improve the process itself. Westerners believe that the predefined process must stay unchanged at least for a certain time. The process should not be improved. Only the targets should be improved. This is how Westerners understand the 'continuous improvement'.

On the other hand, Japanese never take the top-down approach because Japanese believe that not only the improvement targets but also the improvement process itself must be continuously improved. The original Japanese word, kaizen, includes the belief that the field workers know best about what is actually happening in the field. This is called genba-shugi in Japanese. Japanese know well that the employees in the administrative sections should not intervene the definition and improvement of the business process of field workers. So Japanese tend to maximize the creativity of field workers in order to realize the 'continuous improvement'. We Japanese don't predefine the improvement process. We make the field workers come up with a new process created by their own efforts, such as collective discussions. There are two major reasons for this bottom-up approach. One reason is that the field workers know best about the actual process and its problems. Of course, in order to enable them to find the problems of their own processes, the company has to continue training the workers regarding various problem identification methods. Such methods are called QC (=quality control) seven tools in the field of Japanese quality management methodologies. The other reason of the bottom-up approach is that this is the most effective and efficient way to motivate the field workers to follow the newly defined process. If the new process is provided by anybody who doesn't participate in the daily field work, why could you expect that the field workers will follow the new process with strong motivation?

Western practice of 'continuous improvement' is strong at a radical and quick process reengineering but weak at motivating people to follow the new processes. Japanese practice is strong at motivating people to follow the new process and strong at a radical and slow process reengineering. But Japanese practice is weak at a both radical and quick process reengineering. But when we look at many cases of ERP or SCM package software implementations in Japanese companies, it seems to be rationale to conclude that Japanese organizations can't accept any kind of radical and quick changes by nature. We can say that this tendency is deep-rooted in Japanese mentality and if you try to change this mentality, it would be extremely inefficient and ineffective. Concerning Japanese organizations, even when the first phase of process reengineering, i.e. the definition of new processes, can be proceeded very quickly thanks to the efforts of external partners, in many cases the initiative suddenly loses its momentum immediately after the field workers (including the managers in each field) are involved in order to implement the new processes actually in the working fields.

If you would like to implement a new process with the 'continuous improvement' in top-down style, the first thing you should do is to change the organization's culture out of Japanese culture to Western one. This would take years. When you compare the years you need to change the organization's culture with the years you need to change the processes with bottom-up style, you should think about what is your top priority? Is it to change the organization's culture or to change the processes? If you think you can chase the two rabbits at once, you are too optimistic to work in Japanese organizations. Japanese business people tend to distrust too optimistic people because we Japanese business people are comfortable when we are in difficulties. Maybe this mentality isn't understandable by lucky Westerners at all. Japanese business people are so realistic that some Westerners wrongly consider them as pessimistic, little ambitious and compromising too easily. In order to avoid being too optimistic strange gaijin, Westerners should sense how much realist a Japanese college can be and adapt yourselves to the sense of reality of the Japanese organization you belong to.

Only by focusing on the difference of 'continuous improvement' from the viewpoint of Westerners and Japanese, we could gain such a rich insight of the organizational culture as described above. Why do we have to contrast the difference so strongly? That's because by emphasizing the difference, both Japanese and Westerners can recognize the limitation of their own perception and capability. Of course, if Westerners still believe that they are more excellent business people a priori than Japanese colleagues, these kinds of argument about cultural differences is completely meaningless. But I believe that there must not be so naive and simple Westerner any more in this post-colonial era, except for George Bush. These kinds of argument shows that, for all foreigners who work in Japanese organizations, the most critical thing is neither leadership, Japanese language capability nor communication skill. The most critical thing is sensitivity to every kind of difference, such as cultural difference, emotional difference, difference in the way of thinking. Leadership, language capability and communication skill can be trained to some extent. But the sensitivity to difference can't be trained but can be fostered only by lived experience (vecu or Erlebnis) in the childhood or youth. Those who have no experience of living in Japan in their childhood or youth should become all the more careful of every kind of difference. Otherwise, all you can find in your organization will be fruitless cultural conflicts between people with different cultural background or insolvable misunderstandings.