Kaizen Main Text Hi, this is AJ with your next lesson. The rest of the lessons are going to be a little bit different than what you've had up 'til now. In the rest of these lessons, I'm going to talk

Kaizen Main Text

Hi, this is AJ with your next lesson. The rest of the lessons are going to be a little bit

different than what you've had up 'til now. In the rest of these lessons, I'm going to talk

about some book or article or idea, l'll probably read a little bit of it just so you can get

the general idea of the topic, and then l'll talk about that topic. And, of course, we'll

have our same mini-stories, we're going to have our vocabulary lessons, and we're

going to add one more kind of lesson, the point of view lesson. The point of view lesson

is really great for learning grammar in an intuitive way. Alright, so let's get started.

This lesson is called "The Kaizen Way." So we're going to talk about a book. The book

is called The Kaizen Way by Robert Maurer. Now, kaizen is a Japanese word although

we use it in English now a little bit. Especially in Business you find it a lot, kaizen.

Kaizen, as our Japanese students already know, means small improvements over time.

It really means constant and neverending improvement. But it has this idea of making

little tiny improvements again and again and again and again, for one week, for one

month, for one year, forever. So kaizen is kind of the opposite of innovation.

Innovation means a sudden, big change, a sudden, big improvement. And that's a great

way to learn and improve. For example, you could study English very intensely for one

month or two months and you would make a big, sudden improvement. That's the

innovation idea, but there's another way you can improve and that is the kaizen way.

And the kaizen way means maybe you just listen to English or read English or study

English, maybe you just do it 20 minutes every day. And every day you improve just a

little bit. But the key, the secret is you do it every single day. Every day you make one

little improvement. Well after one week, one month, one year, two years, five years, you

will make a huge change just by making little tiny improvements over time. That's the

idea of kaizen.

So l'm going to read a little bit from The Kaizen Way, just a couple paragraphs, and then

l'll talk about it more. Okay, so here's a section, it's called Kaizen Tip and this is from

Robert Maurer, M-a-u-r-e-r, that's his last name. Okay, Kaizen Tip:

"You want to do something creative. Write a story or a song. Paint

a picture. Dream up your perfect career. Learn something or come

up with a zinger of a solution to an office problem. But you have no

idea where to start. Your mind keeps coming up empty. During

times like these, kaizen can help you summon your powers of

inspiration. Although you can't force your brain to cough up

creative ideas on demand, you can program to launch the

imaginative process simply by asking yourself a small question.