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Care at work
Investors and founders taken to Japan for the first time notice that everybody really cares about what they do. That care comes from years of weekly improvement, the same habit as an audio engineer who tries to make the sound 10% better every time.
Founders have this instinct, and most people never see how compounding improvement works, much like compounding interest. A startup that becomes 3% more efficient one week and 3% again the next builds on each gain, so a week without improvement costs more than the week itself.
The cost of standing still
For a startup in a hard industry tied to the pace of lab experiments, every week without growth is a week that may be wasted forever. The cost of not growing fast and being ambitious is higher than ever.
How did kaizen take hold in Japanese industry?
After World War II, American statistician W. Edwards Deming taught statistical quality control to Japanese engineers, starting in 1950, through the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers. Toyota's production system, developed by Taiichi Ohno, built continuous improvement into daily factory work. Masaaki Imai's 1986 book Kaizen spread the term outside Japan. Toyota workers on the line can stop production to flag a problem.
How did marginal gains transform British cycling?
Dave Brailsford, performance director of British Cycling and later Team Sky, pursued many small improvements across equipment, training, and recovery. Team Sky was founded in 2010 with the goal of winning the Tour de France within five years. Bradley Wiggins won the 2012 race, ahead of that goal. British riders also won most of the cycling gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Why do Japanese artisans spend decades on one craft?
The shokunin tradition treats mastery of a single craft as a lifelong pursuit. Apprentices commonly spend years learning basic tasks before being trusted with the core ones. Japan's 1950 Law for the Protection of Cultural Properties created the Living National Treasure designation for masters of traditional crafts. Chefs, potters, and swordsmiths have held it.