In the 1980s, Toyota popularized a Japanese concept called kaizen, in which each Toyota employee would recommend work changes to help cut company costs and improve quality. Kaizen has since been defined variably as continual improvement and continuous improvement.
But continual and continuous are not interchangeable.
Continual indicates duration over a long period of time, with breaks in between. Continuous means without interruption.
So kaizen is accurately defined as continual improvement. Employees are expected to recommend positive workplace changes, one recommendation at a time, with breaks between their suggestions. After all, those employees have duties to perform that have nothing to do with cutting costs or improving quality.
Toyota’s top management undoubtedly hopes that employees will make frequent recommendations, but it can’t expect those recommendations to come continuously. Indeed, it is management’s role to create continuous (uninterrupted) improvement based on the employees’ continual (intermittent) recommendations.
How can we remember the difference between continuous and continual? Note that the word continual ends with a letter that looks like the number one. And continual means one at a time, or intermittent. Put those two ideas together, and you’ll continually improve your grammar.
Neil Chethik, aka the Grammar Gourmet, is executive director at the Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning (www.carnegieliteracy.org) and author of FatherLoss and VoiceMale. The Carnegie Center offers writing classes and seminars for businesses and individuals. Contact Neil at neil@carnegiecenterlex.org or (859)254-4175.