The Curmudgeon and Jaded Julie Talk About Names

“Hey, Jaded Julie, I have a new name. It’s The Kaizen Curmudgeon.”

“I liked your old name, Affinity’s Quality Curmudgeon. And the columns you wrote on patient safety, standards, and Lean were easy to find in Quality Management’s home page on the Affinity intranet. Why the change?”

“I’ve got a new home, in Affinity’s Kaizen Promotion Office, and I’m going to write a blog instead of intranet columns. So it’s new geography, a new communication medium, and of course, a new name.”

“But with your old name, I at least understood one of the words.”

“My last name wasn’t so bad. Although the dictionary says that a curmudgeon is a nasty old person, I prefer to think of him as a grouch possessing a significant amount of perspicacity.”

“Thanks for the help. At least I know what a grouch is. But what’s that Kaizen stuff?”

“Kaizen is a Japanese word meaning ‘change for the better’ or ‘continuous improvement.’ It's one of the principles of the Lean transformation that we are initiating at Affinity Health System."

“So why use Japanese words? They are all Greek to me.”

“Lean was first used in Japan. It's their game, so we use their words. It’s sort of like the way they use our words for our game, baseball, or besuboru in Japanese. Other baseball terms that the Japanese have adopted (sort of) are pinchi hitta (pinch hitter), rukii (rookie), and senta (center fielder).”

“Hey, that Japanese stuff is a great idea. Maybe I can wear a kimono at work instead of my blue scrubs.”

“We’ll see. Julie, next time we get together I’ll introduce another Japanese word, gemba (the workplace), and we’ll talk more about what is involved in a Lean transformation.”

“I can’t wait, Curmudge."

"Sayonara."

Affinity's Kaizen Curmudgeon