I Thought I Was Learning to Use AI
Twenty-five years late to my own interview answer
The outside claims this piece leans on, and where they come from. Each note says what the source looked at, so you can judge how far it stretches.
Kaizen comes from manufacturing
History of a management practice: US wartime industrial training, post-war Japanese manufacturing, popularised in the West by Imai (1986).
Kaizen means small improvements, made continuously by the people doing the work, on the basis that many minor gains beat waiting for one large one
Management book (1986) defining kaizen as ongoing incremental improvement involving everyone in an organisation.
There is a well-established manufacturing philosophy (kaizen) built on exactly the instinct of not doing the same thing twice
Imai (1986); Toyota Production System (standard work and waste elimination)
Interpretive link between a personal habit and kaizen; kaizen improves repeated work, it does not avoid repetition.