Sunday Evening — Where Should the First Kaizen Go?
Sometimes Monday feels heavy before it begins. Not because we dislike our work, but because we already know the recurring friction waiting for us: the report, the meeting, the approval, the workaround, the same problem returning again. This reflection explores a simple idea: Kaizen should first make work better for the person doing it. Not only faster. Not only cheaper. Not only more productive. Better. Because when improvement removes unnecessary burden, it can reduce errors, rework, waiting, frustration, and overtime—while also giving people back something very valuable: time, energy, and the ability to be well outside work. And perhaps that is where real improvement culture begins. What is adding weight to your feet before Monday—and what is the first kilo you can remove?
DEVELOPING PEOPLETHINKING DIFFERENTLY
Sunday Evening — Where Should the First Kaizen Go?
There are Sundays when Monday feels heavy before it even begins.
Nothing dramatic may be happening.
There may be no crisis waiting for us.
No emergency.
No major conflict.
And yet, sometime on Sunday afternoon, we can already feel the weight of the week in our feet.
I have had Sundays like that.
Not because I disliked my work.
Not because I lacked commitment.
But because I already knew what was waiting for me.
The report that would have to be rebuilt again.
The meeting that would probably take an hour and solve very little.
The approval I would need to chase.
The information that would arrive late.
The file that would take too long to find.
The same problem that everyone knew would return.
The same handoff that would create confusion.
The same task that depended on someone remembering instead of the system helping us do the right thing.
None of those things may seem serious enough on their own.
That is part of the problem.
We learn to tolerate them.
We call them normal.
We work around them.
We compensate.
We stay a little later.
We send one more message.
We make one more call.
We fix one more error.
We rebuild one more spreadsheet.
We attend one more meeting.
We carry one more thing in our heads because the process does not carry it for us.
Each one may add only a little weight.
But little weights accumulate.
And by Sunday evening, those grams can become kilos.
Sometimes Monday feels heavy because we are already anticipating all the unnecessary weight we know we will have to carry again.
That makes me think about Kaizen.
I have always believed that improvement should first make work better for the person doing it.
Not only faster.
Not only cheaper.
Not only more productive.
Better.
Easier to understand.
Easier to perform correctly.
Easier to see when something is wrong.
Less dependent on memory.
Less dependent on chasing someone.
Less dependent on heroic effort.
Less searching.
Less waiting.
Less rework.
Less uncertainty.
Less unnecessary follow-up.
Less time spent correcting problems that should not have happened in the first place.
And, very importantly, less work carried home at the end of the day.
Because that matters.
A lot.
If an improvement helps me finish my work on time, that is not a minor side effect.
That may mean I can go to the gym.
It may mean I can help my children with their homework.
It may mean I can have dinner with my family without checking my phone every five minutes.
It may mean I can spend time with my partner.
Read.
Walk.
Cook.
Watch a movie.
Sleep better.
Or simply do nothing for a while.
That time does not belong to the company.
And it should not need to.
People need time to recover.
To think about something else.
To rest.
To live.
To be well.
And when people are well, they tend to return with more attention, more patience, more energy, more judgment, and more capacity to think.
That is not separate from good work.
It is one of the conditions that makes good work possible.
This is why I struggle when Kaizen becomes one more thing added to someone’s workload.
One more form.
One more meeting.
One more idea to submit.
One more board to update.
One more target.
One more presentation.
One more activity to track.
One more responsibility added to a day that was already full.
If that is how Kaizen is experienced, I understand why people may not feel enthusiastic about it.
Why should they?
From their perspective, “improvement” may simply mean more work.
And if people cannot see what Kaizen improves for them, it is very easy for Kaizen to become just another demand from work.
Something that is done because someone is asking for it.
Something maintained while there is pressure.
Something postponed when things get busy.
Something abandoned as soon as leadership attention moves somewhere else.
And then we wonder why the culture did not change.
Perhaps the problem is not that people resist improvement.
Perhaps the problem is that we taught them that improvement means carrying more.
I think Kaizen should begin somewhere else.
Not by asking people:
“What else can you do?”
But by asking:
What is the work already making you carry unnecessarily?
That question changes everything.
Because suddenly the first Kaizen does not need to be a major transformation project.
It may be something much smaller.
Something almost boring.
The report that gets rebuilt every Monday because no one standardized it.
The meeting that always starts late because the information is never ready.
The approval that depends on finding the right person at the right moment.
The spreadsheet only one person understands.
The recurring task that still lives in someone’s memory.
The handoff where nobody is completely sure who owns the next step.
The same customer question answered from scratch every week.
The file that everyone keeps searching for.
The dashboard that shows numbers but does not make priorities visible.
The recurring error that has become “just part of the job.”
The Monday morning rush created by something that could have been prepared on Friday.
The email we already know we will have to chase.
The problem everybody works around because “that is how it has always been.”
The instruction that changes depending on who explains it.
The workaround that exists only because the process never addressed the real problem.
The task that takes thirty minutes longer than it should because the information is scattered across three systems.
The decision that gets delayed until it becomes urgent.
The meeting that exists because ownership was never made clear.
The inspection that exists because the process is not trusted.
The reminder that exists because the system does not make the next action obvious.
These are not always the biggest problems in the company.
But they are real.
They consume attention.
They create friction.
They produce errors.
They generate rework.
They make work feel heavier than it needs to be.
And many of them are within our span of control.
Not everything is.
That matters too.
There will always be things outside our authority.
Policies we cannot change.
Decisions we do not own.
Systems we cannot redesign by ourselves.
People we cannot force to respond faster.
Problems that require resources we do not have.
But even when we cannot change the whole system, there is often something smaller we can influence.
Something we can simplify.
Clarify.
Prepare earlier.
Standardize.
Make visible.
Move closer.
Eliminate.
Organize.
Document.
Teach.
Design better.
And perhaps that is where our first Kaizen should go.
Not necessarily to the most important problem in the organization.
Not necessarily to the biggest financial opportunity.
Not necessarily to the problem that looks best on a presentation.
Sometimes the first Kaizen should simply go to the most avoidable source of friction in our own work.
The thing that adds weight every week.
The thing we already dread on Sunday.
The thing that makes us say:
“Again?”
That is useful information.
Our irritation is not always something to suppress.
Sometimes it is pointing directly at a process that needs attention.
The purpose is not to make people more comfortable for the sake of comfort.
The purpose is to remove unnecessary burden so people can use their energy for the work that actually requires judgment, creativity, care, and skill.
That is also why I believe Kaizen should help develop capabilities.
A good improvement should not only change the process.
It should leave the person more capable.
More autonomous.
More able to see problems.
More able to understand causes.
More able to make decisions.
More able to improve the next problem without waiting for someone else to tell them what to do.
If we improve the process but leave people more dependent, I am not sure we have improved enough.
If we automate a task but remove all understanding from the person doing the work, we may have gained speed and lost capability.
If we standardize a process but nobody understands why the standard exists, we may have created compliance rather than learning.
If we ask for Kaizen but never allow people to experience the benefit of improvement in their own work, we may be training them to see Kaizen as something the company wants from them.
And that is a very different thing from building a culture of improvement.
Culture is not created by telling people that Kaizen matters.
Culture begins when people experience, repeatedly, that improving the work makes their day better.
When the report becomes easier.
When the confusion disappears.
When the same error stops coming back.
When the handoff becomes clear.
When they stop chasing information.
When the meeting gets shorter.
When the work starts flowing.
When they no longer need to compensate for a bad process with extra effort.
When they can finish at the time they are supposed to finish.
That is when improvement stops being abstract.
It becomes personal.
And people tend to protect what genuinely helps them.
That may be one of the reasons so many improvement programs fail.
They begin with the company.
The company needs more productivity.
The company needs lower cost.
The company needs better quality.
The company needs more ideas.
The company needs more engagement.
The company needs more Kaizen.
And only afterwards do we ask what the people inside the company need.
I think we should sometimes reverse the question.
What do people need from the system so they can do good work?
What makes their work unnecessarily difficult?
What forces them to improvise?
What steals their time?
What makes them stay late?
What makes them fix the same problem repeatedly?
What makes them depend on someone else for something they should be able to resolve?
What prevents them from learning?
What makes Monday feel heavy before Monday has even arrived?
Those questions do not ignore the needs of the business.
Quite the opposite.
Because when we remove unnecessary burden from the work, we also reduce the conditions that create errors, rework, waiting, variation, frustration, and poor flow.
The person benefits.
And the company benefits as a consequence.
I do not see those as competing objectives.
A healthier system should improve both.
This is also where Respect for People becomes more than a phrase.
Respect is not only being polite.
It is not only listening.
It is not only recognizing people.
It should also be visible in the amount of unnecessary burden the system removes from their day.
If people are constantly expected to compensate for bad processes with memory, overtime, attention, urgency, or heroic effort, it is difficult to call that respect.
Improvement should reduce the amount of the system people have to carry on their backs.
Or in their heads.
Or in their feet.
Because people do not suddenly become different human beings when they walk out of the office.
What happens at work goes home with them.
The frustration goes home.
The fatigue goes home.
The unfinished problem goes home.
The feeling of having spent the day fighting the system goes home.
And what happens outside work also returns the next morning.
Rest returns.
Energy returns.
Perspective returns.
Family returns.
Life returns.
People do not live in two completely separate cultures.
Work and life continuously affect each other.
That is why I think helping people finish their work well, and on time, matters more than we sometimes admit.
Not because the company is responsible for everything that happens in someone’s life.
It is not.
But because a good work system should not unnecessarily consume the part of life that belongs to the person.
And perhaps this is worth reflecting on for those of us who ask other people to do Kaizen.
If people consistently experience improvement as additional work, perhaps the question is not:
“Why are they resisting?”
Perhaps the better question is:
What have we taught them Kaizen means?
If Kaizen means more meetings, more forms, more targets, more ideas, more presentations, and more things to do without anything becoming easier, people are being completely rational when they try to avoid it.
They are not rejecting improvement.
They are rejecting additional burden.
And maybe we created that association.
What is imposed can be maintained by pressure.
What genuinely improves people’s work has a chance to become culture.
That difference matters.
So perhaps Sunday evening can become a useful moment for reflection.
Not to solve everything.
Not to redesign the company before Monday morning.
Not to create another list of things we should be doing.
Just to ask:
What is making Monday heavier than it needs to be?
Then:
Which part of that is actually within my control or influence?
And finally:
What small change could remove some of that weight?
Maybe it is preparing something earlier.
Maybe it is clarifying a handoff.
Maybe it is creating a simple checklist.
Maybe it is organizing information so it is easier to find.
Maybe it is eliminating a step.
Maybe it is asking a question that should have been asked months ago.
Maybe it is standardizing something we keep reinventing.
Maybe it is making a recurring problem visible instead of continuing to work around it.
Maybe it is simply deciding that something we have tolerated for too long does not need to remain normal.
That may be enough for a first Kaizen.
We may not be able to remove every kilo.
But perhaps we can remove one.
And if we keep doing that, week after week, something interesting may happen.
Monday becomes a little lighter.
The work becomes a little better.
The person becomes a little more capable.
And the system asks them to carry a little less.
Perhaps that is what Kaizen should feel like.
Not another thing added to our week.
But one less thing weighing on our feet.