When kaizen (“change for better”) was the foundation for lean manufacturing and The Toyota Way, did Toyota train workers to be “entrepreneurial”? They probably did – but didn’t call it that. When workers at Toyota made an improvement in the manufacturing process, were they being entrepreneurial or simply practicing kaizen? Put differently, could kaizen have thrived if not for the entrepreneur in every worker?
Consider these definitions of an entrepreneur. The entrepreneur is someone who:
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organizes, operates and assumes the risk for a business venture.
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organizes and manages a business, usually with considerable initiative.
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risks their own capital in a business enterprise.
Wouldn’t every CEO want each employee to assume the risk for a business venture, with considerable initiative, as if they were investing their own capital. How would an organization perform if every employee “owned” successes and failures?
To compete in today’s economy, organizations have to change their perspective from thinking entrepreneurism is a nice to have and a recruiting slogan to a realization that it is the oxygen that can deliver performance in their core business, optimize investments in innovation and drive the performance and retention of key talent.
