Kaizen

Kaizen Your Life with the Ten Lessons for Good Health

Avatar photo By Jon Miller Published on February 11th, 2008

These ten lessons for good health (健康十訓) are glazed onto my teacup. Reading these while sipping green tea has helped me survive over the years. Lean healthcare professionals take particular note: prevention trumps correction every time.
Ten Lessons for Good Health (健康十訓)
1. 少肉多菜 = eat less meat and more vegetables
2. 少塩多酢 = take less salt and more vinegar
3. 少糖多果 = eat less sugar and more fruit
4. 少食多噛 = eat less food and but chew it more thoroughly
5. 少衣多浴 = wear less clothes and bathe more often
6. 少言多行 = talk less and do more
7. 少欲多施 = desire less and give more
8. 少憂多眠 = worry less and sleep more
9. 少車多歩 = drive less and walk more
10. 少憤多笑 = anger less and laugh more
What would be the ten lessons for lean management success? Let’s adapt the ten lessons for good health to management to making our organizations more healthy through lean management:
Ten Lessons for Lean Management Success
1. Balance kaizen results with learning (meat = results, vegetables = learning)
2. Seek the brutal facts, not the palatable version of reality (salt tastes good, vinegar is sour)
3. Get your facts from the source, not from processed data (sugar is processed, fruit is pure)
4. Make decisions after deep consideration (chew the food thoroughly)
5. Address problems and contamination frequently rather than covering them up (bathe often)
6. Talk less and do more (no change needed to the original)
7. Find someone to serve, mentor or help (desire less and give more)
8. Worry less and sleep more (no change needed to the original)
9. Spent more time walking the gemba, less time in motorized transport or in conference rooms
10. Anger less and laugh more (no change needed to the original)
Does my logic work? Have a great week.


  1. ekaizen

    February 12, 2008 - 6:46 am
    Reply

    Just perfect, I think that I`ll use your ideas for a new “post” on my blog. If you accept it, of course.
    Thanks.

  2. Wayne Marr

    October 6, 2009 - 2:37 pm
    Reply

    So much of what I read about continuous improvement would be useful in the world of health and safety management systems. Better safety performance can only happen if we strive for continuous improvement. I think I need to paraphrase these lessons; can I use your logic?

  3. Jon Miller

    October 6, 2009 - 4:28 pm
    Reply

    Hi Wayne,
    Please feel free to paraphrase these lessons and put them to good use for continuous improvement in the health and safety field.

  4. venu

    February 9, 2010 - 2:36 am
    Reply

    Thank so much for great lesson.
    Venugopal.p

  5. Aniruddha Gokhale

    February 11, 2010 - 9:33 pm
    Reply

    Hi! This is a very good blog on how Kaizen principals can be adopted for health and in management. I am improving the 5th principle for good health to ‘Buy less clothes but keep yourself clean’ – as bathing ‘more often’ is not ecofriendly and against lean use of resources and wearing less clothes can mean further strengthening new generation heroines clothing habits ;-)). Using ‘just enough’ resources also aligns with conservation and green thinking.

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