Continuous Improvement an ongoing effort to improve products, services, or processes. These efforts can seek "incremental" improvement over time or "breakthrough" improvement all at once. Delivery (customer valued) processes are constantly evaluated and improved in the light of their efficiency, effectiveness and flexibility (Continuous Improvement); a management technique that historically involves several incremental improvements to a process rather than a single overpowering improvement to change (Satterlee, 2009).
Summary
The premise that weaves throughout the entirety of the article is that continuous improvement and repentance are importantly and invariably linked. The article discusses the great need in today- business culture to promote “high performance and high trust cultures and pursue competitive advantage (Caldwell et al, 2011).†A significant part of modern leadership, they claim, is repentance. The article defines repentance, in moderate congruency, by means of various world religions and points out that “all religions acknowledge the need to refine and polish one- life to fulfill one- human potential, to cleanse one- life of imperfections, and to draw closer to fulfilling one- purpose on the earth†(Caldwell et al, 2011). The article delves further into specific leadership styles including charismatic, transformational, servant, principle-centered, level five, and covenantal and discusses these in relation to the importance, application, and foundation of repentance.
Discussion
I was initially quite surprised when I saw the word repentance used in an article discussing continuous improvement in a business setting. Upon further examination and contemplation, however, I find that it is very useful for comprehension and implementation. Continuous improvement, the English adaptation from the Japanese term kaizen, is similar to repentance, an integrated change in one- actions or way of life that seeks to improve relationships with others, either individually or as members of a group (Caldwell et al, 2011), in that both require an individual to discard undesirable methods and replace them with an improved alternative. After all, how effective would it be for a business to draw up plans to improve an existing process that would increase revenue and reduce costs if they never or occasionally implemented it? Similar is the proposition of making an apology without “repenting†and changing one- actions.
There are two more complimentary themes in the article that are fascinating to me. Firstly, the idea that nobody is perfect and, likewise, no man-made methodology is perfect is implicitly assumed throughout the text. Without this fact there is no basis for a firm to continually be seeking to improve, perpetually optimizing and shedding the deadweight of inefficiency. Consequently, given the assumption of imperfection, continuous improvement would seem to be an absolute must for a successful firm. Secondly, the article discusses parallels between religion and business in a peaceful and practical way. The article did not endorse any one religion but extended appropriate credence in acknowledging that religion plays an important role in shaping and molding the way individuals think and act. These same individuals are what all businesses are comprised of.
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