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The Failure of “The Livonia Philosophy” at my GM Plant

Deming Institute

As I wrote about in my first post , my first job out of college was at the GM Livonia Engine Plant, outside of Detroit. Speaking of continuous improvement, my GM plant also had a very traditional “suggestion system,” not a Kaizen-style approach to improvement. Instead of development, we got regression, apparently.

Kaizen 28
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How to Successfully Work Across Countries, Languages, and Cultures

Harvard Business Review

The Japanese employees, while already fluent with Japanese concepts such as kaizen (improvement) and omotenashi (hospitality), struggled to become proficient in English. These challenges differed depending on people’s backgrounds and location. Two groups had the steepest learning curve in particular. It consists of five key actions.