Easier Ways: The Deming Cycle & Kaizen

Trauma-informed coaching with Peterson Resilience Consulting operates from a mutual agreement that martyrdom, sacrificial productivity, and marathon rides on the struggle bus are 100% not worth it. A bonus domino effect from this motto is that doing hard things *can* feel easier.

Yes, we can do hard things.

Yes, hard things might feel uncomfortable, but why make it more difficult?! 

I began my business career as a musician and music teacher. It showed me that the process of optimizing something doesn't have to feel like pain or drudgery. It *can* feel easy and fun! Many musicians love practicing every day for hours and hours and lose track of time doing so.

Functionally in business, this kind of practicing is also referred to as the Deming Cycle (wiki): plan, do, check, act (rinse, repeat) This process happens a lot in my coaching and consulting sessions too!

Let's say a client starts a session mentioning that their content creation process isn't quite how they'd like it to be (aka "content dread"). One way to apply this Deming Cycle to ease and enjoyment is:

1. Check-in with the current status of ease and enjoyment with their content creation plan
2. Make any necessary tweaks to the plan (i.e. change topics, bulk creation, technical system, or schedule co-working sessions).
3. Do the new plan.
4. Check back in to see if those changes made the desired improvements to their ease and enjoyment.
5. Rinse and repeat!

Much of this never-ending cycle of evolution is summed up through the Japanese philosophy of "kaizen." Kaizen (wiki) is a Sino-Japanese word that means "change for the better" with the implication that this evolution is constant. Toyota adopted this philosophy to capitalism (boo!) and made the philosophy "famous" in the automotive manufacturing and business community. 

But kaizen is so much more than pumping out the maximum amount of perfect vehicles, optimizing factories, and lining Jeff Bezos wallet (boo!)

We're always evolving—as communities, countries, humans, consumers, citizens, and business owners.

If that's true, then trauma survivors can't go running a business or career marathon at the speed of burnout or exhaustion! So my not-so-secret goal is to discover alongside my clients how their unique version of kaizen can feel eeeeaaaaassy! 

So is an easier way to run your business or career really just sitting in your garage? If you own a Toyota (or really *any* vehicle) then metaphorically, yes! Every time we see a vehicle, we're looking at the result of kaizen.

Psst! As business owners, we also get the added responsibility of improving the application of kaizen to commerce (hint: kaizen doesn't *have* feed capitalism).

Kaizen, when applied to coaching, means that my clients generally spend their sessions discussing the methods, models, tools, routines, and habits that do exactly that—make running their business or career feel as easy as possible! The FAQs provide a pretty good synopsis of what that might look like.

Click here for more FAQs

If any of this resonates with you or you've got more questions, click here to schedule a meet-n-greet.