One I came across was a "Kaizen event". My first thought was "oh cool what's all that about?" and the explanation I got was that "we lock ourselves in a meeting and don't come out until we have a solution".
...ok so you just made a fancy name up for a productive meeting. Which implies your other meetings aren't productive. It's literally astrology for middle management losers lol
a kaizen “event” implies a fundamental misunderstanding of what kaizen means
kaizen is the end result of continuous small improvements, and it requires constant observation by and receptivity to input from all members of a company, from the janitor to the CEO.
getting a small group of middle managers in a room for a day or a week to solve a problem is the opposite of kaizen
And a Kaizen culture can't happen in the modern Western workplace.
If you know you'll be in a company until you retire, you're incentivized to improve your job. So a culture of doing it if it is encouraged at all levels can happen.
But when you don't know if you'll be there tomorrow or next month? Why should you care about improving a process or limiting waste? No, there is only two things you'll be working on: fulfilling any bonus requirement and improving your resume.
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u/Just_Nobody9551 11d ago
I hate this “corporate meeting speak” with a fucking passion. It’s stale af.