Kaizen is the Japanese concept roughly translated as “continuous improvement.” Sometimes called “The Toyota Way,” it’ s why the two Toyotas in my carport that have more than 200,000 miles still run better than a domestic automobile with half that many.
The idea is to always be working on getting better at whatever you’re doing. Toyota’s cars always rank first in quality by Consumer Reports because they have instilled this ethos for decades.
In Latin you’d call it “excelsior,” which you might recall as the state motto of New York meaning “ever higher” and the subject of a famous Longfellow poem about a youth climbing a frozen mountain.
Whatever the name, it’s the same idea that the apostle Paul had in mind when he wrote that he had not already obtained his ultimate goal or been made perfect but “forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus (Phil. 3:13-14).”
Paul had preached the gospel all over the known world, converted thousands, established churches and written much of the New Testament, but he did not consider himself to have accomplished everything he needed to. It was never time to retire and rest for him. Instead he pushed ahead as long as he lived until he reached his destination — heaven.
I try to follow that model when it comes to Christianity. Who can I better serve? How can I help at church? What are some ways I can become more Christ-like in my everyday behavior?
It also applies in business. As a supervisor, I’ve come to deeply appreciate employees who want to improve themselves, their company and its products. The difference between the contributions of a worker like that and of one who just wants to get the job done and go home is incalculable.
In seven years of running newspapers, I can confidently say, like Paul, that I’ve never attained the level that I want to reach with our products. And I’ll never get there; that’s because the goal is continuous improvement, always working to have a newspaper that better serves its readers and advertisers, and there are always opportunities to find ways to do that.
Certainly the newspaper industry has experienced disruption from the digital revolution, but who hasn’t? Retail certainly has. Changes in the market are merely a challenge to keep entering the arena with new ideas to offer your customers.
We will be doing that soon as we launch several new digital advertising opportunities that I’m excited about. We will be providing email blasts in partnership with the nation’s cutting-edge leader (part of Amazon-founder Jeff Bezos’ companies) who has the best technology and database of email addresses to allow local companies to pinpoint the exact audience they want to reach. It’s the modern-day version of direct mail or newspaper inserts: a way to precisely reach potential customers with sales information. We’re also going to be rolling out new online contest, survey and poll technologies that will help us tie in our print product with the ways people like to access information today on their phones.
I’d also like to share an opportunity to improve our community newspaper that requires your help. Sometimes continuous improvement isn’t about adopting new innovations but rather going back to tried-and-true methods that you’ve drifted away from.
In the past, not even that long ago, nearly every birth, engagement, wedding and death in Marion County was documented in these pages. That told the stories — and recorded the history — of our people from cradle to grave.
Frankly, newspapers didn’t have to work that hard to get that kind of information. People just brought them in, and we typed them up and published them. Perhaps we took them for granted.
But in recent years submissions of those types of milestones have waned. A reader recently sent me what she called a “positive suggestion” to begin seeking those out again. I’ve taken the advice to heart and am working on a campaign to recruit submission of such society items.
I’d appreciate your help in submitting those for yourself or encouraging relatives or friends to do the same. There’s no charge, and it’s important for building a sense of community and documenting our shared history.
It won’t be as easy to get those as it was in the past, but maybe being forced to work hard for something will make it that much sweeter when you get it.
Excelsior!
Charlie Smith is editor and publisher of The Columbian-Progress. Reach him at (601) 736-2611 or csmith@columbianprogress.com.
