Go and see

Japanese management has a reputation for being complicated, full of foreign words and wall charts. At heart, much of it is refreshingly simple. Here are three habits we find useful for any business, large or small.

Genba: look where the work happens

Toyota describes 'genchi genbutsu' as going to see for yourself, at the place where the problem exists. Not reading a report about it; not hearing about it in a meeting; going to the workshop floor, the warehouse or the shop counter and watching. Owners who do this regularly often spot in ten minutes what a monthly report hides for a year: a machine waiting for material, a form filled in three times, a customer waiting because nobody feels responsible.

Kaizen: many small improvements

Kaizen means continuous improvement through small steps, suggested and carried out by the people who do the work. It is less dramatic than a large transformation project, and that is precisely its strength. Small changes are cheap, quick to test and easy to reverse if they do not work.

There is good evidence that such basics matter. Researchers from Stanford, the London School of Economics and the World Bank ran a careful experiment with textile factories in India. The factories that received help to introduce simple practices, such as keeping workplaces orderly, recording defects and tracking inventory, raised their productivity by about 17 per cent in the first year. Interestingly, when the practices later lapsed, the most common reason was that the manager who championed them had left. Good habits need an owner.

Hō-ren-sō: report, inform, consult

In many Japanese companies, staff learn 'hō-ren-sō': report progress, inform colleagues of changes, and consult before problems grow. It keeps everyone aligned and prevents the unpleasant surprise. Used badly, it can turn into micromanagement, with every small decision pushed upwards. Used well, it builds trust in both directions: the manager knows what is happening, and the team knows it may raise problems early without blame.

Start small

None of these ideas requires new software or large budgets. They require attention, consistency and a manager who stays interested. That is also why they work in Vietnam as well as in Japan: they respect the people doing the work, and they build on what is already there.