JOANNA CAREW

In the car, walking the dogs, at the supermarket … if you’re anything like me you’ll find yourself constantly serenaded by the dulcet tones of some self-improvement guru or entrepreneur via podcasts and audiobooks.

Whilst listening I’ve heard multiple speakers rave about the Kaizen philosophy. Translating to “change for the better”, Kaizen is most famous for transforming Toyota’s production system. The aim of implementation is that Kaizen will empower employees to make continuous improvements upgrading their workplace. So I decided we’d give it a go at Carew Dental!

First I needed to get everybody onboard. It makes sense to me that if I expect the team to engage in ideology such as Kaizen they need to be motivated to do so. At the practice we live and breathe ‘Carew Culture’ and have got a fantastic team in place, so I knew motivation wouldn’t be a struggle.

Notwithstanding, I was concerned whether everybody would feel confident suggesting and implementing changes that had the potential to fail, and if they’d feel too vulnerable if judged. So, for Kaizen to succeed at Carew Dental, I felt like I needed to strengthen the team bond and give everybody permission to experiment, fail, and grow.

Cue training! And what a session we had, it was an absolute blast! We explored personal and team growth, the power of failure, Kaizen, marginal gains, and caring more than our competitors.

At the end of training the team whooped and clapped, thanking me for such an awesome and engaging afternoon! It felt magical, honestly, what an absolute privilege to head Carew Dental and work with such fabulous people. I feel so lucky!

Now with the team geared up and ideas coaches in place, I have to wait and see how Kaizen works at Carew Dental, it’s an exciting experiment for sure! I’ll post again with updates as we see how we get on with Kaizen at Carew!

If you have implemented Kaizen please do let me know how you found it! I would love to hear about your experiences and any advice you can offer.