Kaizen in practice from the bottom up

Kaizen in practice from the bottom up

8th April 2024

[The Probe: April 2024]

The dental sector has a strong focus on learning and improving. We love a training course, conference or event where we can network, share, listen, harvest valuable CPD and come away with some thought-provoking ideas or areas for further exploration. This is all in the spirit of Kaizen – a philosophy I apply to everything in my life. I refer to it often so forgive the repetition if you’ve read it here before – it’s a process of continual, incremental improvement. 

A Japanese theory, Kaizen is used by many household names: Toyota, McDonalds, FedEx, Nestlé, Sony, Panasonic to name just a few. Toyota uses it for refining a particular process: improving it, then working out how to complete the process with fewer people. This, in turn, frees up some of the team to take their knowledge and talents to other parts of the business. This is a ‘bottom up’ management style – as opposed to being told what to do (‘top down’). Toyota has been doing this successfully since the 1950s alongside its 5 pillars of virtue: “teamwork, personal discipline, improved morale, quality circles and suggestions for improvement”. This approach has taken it from the production of the Corolla to the Lexus.

Understanding how other organisations perfect their craft makes for fascinating study. And there’s almost always something we can take-away for ourselves. Systemising improvement is definitely something we can put into practice as dentists but it’s key that we involve everyone in the team as part of the afore-mentioned bottom-up culture. Ask your team members to identify the reasons for a particular problem. Ask them to come up with a way that will resolve it. This gives them ownership of the new process. They’ll also know if the proposed solution is feasible within their day-to-day workload. Check in periodically for a level of accountability without micro-managing. I’m convinced this is the basis for introducing successful, incremental improvements in our daily work. It combines Kaizen with a few other management techniques (PDCA: plan-do-check-act, as an example.)

Gemba is another interesting Japanese concept. It means ‘actual place’ and states that to resolve an issue you should go to the actual place where it is happening. Doing the Gemba Walk means you are in situ, looking at where something can be improved. Imagine your stock levels are becoming erratic. You might visit the stock cupboard/room and view a chaotic mess and then the improvement process can begin. Gemba relates well to dentistry as it focuses on the place where value is created – and where more so than in the dentist’s chair?

Changes or improvements of any kind mean a cultural shift and that takes time, investment and understanding. The more I read about successful organisational structure the more I see that it involves all of the usual buzzwords – teamwork, goal-setting and accountability but carefully layered and managed so everyone is working in a way that suits them and benefits everyone around them. There’s so much to learn and I am keen to continue to find out more.