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12 Breathtaking Masaaki Imai Quotes

Masaaki Imai is a Japanese organizational theorist and management consultant best known for his work on Kaizen. Known for his work with the process of continuous improvement, Imai has worked on several publications. Here is a look at some of the best Masaaki Imai quotes ever recorded.

“All of management’s efforts for Kaizen boil down to two words: customer satisfaction.”

“It is impossible to improve any process until it is standardized. If the process is shifting from here to there, then any improvement will just be one more variation that is occasionally used and mostly ignored.”

“Japanese management practices succeed simply because they are good management practices.”

“Kaizen is like a hotbed that nurtures small and ongoing changes, while innovation is like magma that appears in abrupt eruptions from time to time.”

“Kaizen means ongoing improvement involving everybody, without spending much money.”

“One must standardize, and thus stabilize the process, before continuous improvement can be made.”

“Progress is impossible without the ability to admit mistakes.”

“The Kaizen Philosophy assumes that our way of life – be it our working life, our social life, or our home life – deserves to be constantly improved.”

“The message of the Kaizen strategy is that not a day should go by without some kind of improvement being made somewhere in the company.”

“This success has little to do with cultural factors. And the lack of cultural bias means that these practices can be – and are – just as successfully employed elsewhere.”

“Where there is no standard, there can be no improvement. For these reasons, standards are the basis for both maintenance and improvement”

“You can’t do kaizen just once or twice and expect immediate results. You have to be in it for the long haul.”

Here is one video featuring Masaaki Imai as he discusses the topic of lean management.

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