One of the commenters on Kathleen’s weblog recommended a book (One Small Step Can Change Your Life : The kaizen Way, by Robert Maurer) about self-improvement using kaizen. The author is director of behavioral sciences for the Family Practice Residency Program at Santa Monica UCLA Medical Center. The premise of the book is that fear of change can stifle initiative or impede a person’s resolve. He relates severals stories how patients overcame their inability to make positive changes in their lives, using kaizen. He puts all this in the context of brain anatomy and how small changes are able to sidestep our own brain based fear mechanisms.

What impications does this have for organizational behaviorists and agents for industrial change?

I went out and bought this last night — it has encouraged me to find some personal kaizens.