Kaizen is a meta-strategy: When strategy is lived

Most organizations consider strategy as an exercise that takes place in a meeting room, amid PowerPoint presentations, financial projections, and vision statements. Once defined, the strategy is expected to be “implemented,” as though communicating it was enough to make it happen. This model, deeply rooted in traditional management, has a problem: it creates a gap between planning and execution, between those who set the direction and those who execute it.

In this article, we explore the sixth paradox of a Kaizen Culture: “Kaizen is a meta-strategy.” In other words, strategy becomes a daily practice, reflected in behaviors, routines, and the way leaders and teams work each day.

We’ll examine how this mindset shift transforms the role of leadership, brings strategy closer to operations, and builds a system where strategic goals don’t fade away on slides but come to life through daily continuous improvement practices.

What is a paradox?

A paradox is an idea that, at first glance, might seem contradictory or counterintuitive, but when examined more deeply, reveals an essential truth. In management contexts, paradoxes challenge established beliefs and open space for new ways of thinking and acting.

In the world of continuous improvement, paradoxes are especially powerful. They show that often, changing the way we think is the first step toward transforming the way we work.

The sixth paradox of a Kaizen Culture

Kaizen Culture proposes seven paradoxes that deconstruct conventional management beliefs and reveal a new way of leading and improving organizations. These paradoxes are not theoretical concepts; they are real lessons learned from companies that practice structured continuous improvement and achieve consistent results.

The 7 paradoxes of a Kaizen Culture:

1. Practice over tools.
2. Small is not the only Kaizen.
3. Efficiency begins with flow.
4. Standardize to improve.
5. Kaizen is more than operations.
6. Kaizen is a meta-strategy.
7. Kaizen is the smartest way to run a business.

In this article, we focus on the sixth paradox: “Kaizen is a meta-strategy”.

The traditional belief: Kaizen and strategy belong to separate worlds

For decades, strategic management and continuous improvement have evolved as parallel disciplines, rarely crossing paths. The dominant belief is clear: strategy belongs at the top of the organization; Kaizen belongs on the shop floor. One is seen as intellectual, the other as operational. One lives in slide presentations, the other on visual boards within teams. And so a dangerous separation has been built.

Strategy is for executives, Kaizen is for operations

Ask any organization: “Who’s responsible for strategy?” The typical answer points to the C-level. Then ask: “Who’s responsible for Kaizen?” and the answer usually shifts down to Lean experts or production managers. This pattern reveals a mental hierarchy: strategy is planned by those who think, while Kaizen is executed by those who act.

In this model, continuous improvement is viewed as support to execution—useful, but not strategic.

The gap between planning and execution

In practice, this model presents one of the most significant organizational challenges: a gap between planning and reality. Strategy is often developed at the highest level, often far from the field, and then pushed down with the hope it will be understood and executed.

People are given goals but aren’t involved in defining how to reach them. They’re expected to “implement,” but they don’t feel ownership. Without a structure connecting daily actions to strategic objectives, priorities are lost, indicators turn red, and alignment disappears.

Without daily practices that turn vision into behavior, strategies become documents of intent—rather than drivers of transformation.

Culture isn’t part of strategy

Another limiting belief is that culture is something intangible that “supports” strategy but isn’t actually part of it. In this view, strategy lives in spreadsheets, dashboards, and action plans. Culture? It’s on the mission wall or printed on posters.

This model misses a crucial point: culture decides whether a strategy gets executed… or ends up collecting dust.

The new vision: Kaizen includes business strategy

This new perspective challenges traditional thinking: Kaizen is not just an operational improvement tool—it’s a strategic discipline. When practiced consistently, Kaizen becomes a system that not only executes strategy but also builds and adjusts it every day.

Kaizen as a strategy

In most organizations, strategy is treated as an event: an annual exercise focused on forecasts, goals, and slide presentations. But in a Kaizen Culture, strategy is a continuous practice. It starts with real problems, the voice of the customer, and relevant challenges, and it’s addressed daily by teams learning to align their actions with strategic objectives.

Strategy is no longer an exercise reserved for senior management; it becomes a living discipline, visible and practiced at every level of the organization. In this model, strategic plans don’t die in PowerPoint presentations: they are translated into daily behaviors, informed decisions, and constant improvements.

Visible and engaged leadership

Leading a living strategy requires presence. Leaders don’t manage from behind reports — they go to the shop floor, ask questions, listen, challenge, and support. They sponsor improvement events, remove obstacles, and ensure that execution stays aligned with strategic intent.

More than visionaries, they act as enablers of transformation. They create the conditions that allow strategy to be practiced by everyone, every day.

Strategy as a collaborative process

Instead of being designed by a few and executed by many, strategy is built through dialogue. By using practices like Hoshin Kanri and catchball, strategic objectives are debated, deployed, and translated into clear responsibilities throughout the organization.

Each team understands its role, and every employee knows how their daily work contributes to the organization’s overall goals. This generates alignment, focus, and a genuine sense of ownership.

Frequent feedback and quick actions

Unlike traditional annual strategy cycles, this model operates with short rhythms and continuous feedback loops. Initiatives are reviewed regularly, emerging problems are identified at the right time, and deviations are corrected quickly.

Strategy is no longer fixed and immutable, but is reinforced by real-world conditions at the Gemba, where work is done and value is created.

Culture as a system, not as an intention

In a Kaizen Culture, culture isn’t a set of intentions or values only posted on the wall. It’s a tangible, disciplined system that makes strategy visible, actionable, and sustainable in daily operations.

This system is built on a robust model that includes some key elements:

• Hoshin Kanri for planning and deploying strategic priorities with clarity and alignment.
• Leader Standard Work to ensure active leadership engagement in strategic execution.
• Kaizen Events to drive strategic priorities with focus, pace, and measurable impact.
• Daily Management Systems to monitor execution and close the loop between planning and action.
• Skill development and best practice sharing processes to train leaders and teams capable of continuous improvement.

This is what makes Kaizen a meta-strategy. Kaizen isn’t something you activate after defining your strategy, but it’s the very mechanism through which strategy is built, deployed, adjusted, and lived.

This new model works for one simple but powerful reason: it turns strategy into practice. Rather than assuming execution “will happen,” it structures the behaviors and routines that make execution inevitable. Rather than treating culture as something intangible, it builds specific systems to ensure daily discipline.

In the Kaizen model, strategy is something you practice until you master it. It’s not about having better ideas; it’s about building smarter systems. That’s why the Kaizen Culture works. Because it does not separate culture from strategy, but transforms Kaizen culture into the very process of defining and implementing the organization’s strategy.

Conclusion: Kaizen doesn’t support strategy, it is the strategy

The true power of a Kaizen Culture goes beyond process improvement—it lies in how it transforms strategy into a living system, practiced by everyone. Rather than separating strategic thinking from operational action, Kaizen merges the two into a single, continuous flow of learning, experimentation, and value delivery.

Through this sixth paradox, we’ve learned that strategy doesn’t have to be executed as something external to the team’s daily work. On the contrary, when built on practices like Hoshin Kanri, Kaizen Events, and Daily Management, strategy stops being an intention—it becomes a shared behavior.

When strategy becomes something people practice, the entire organization moves together in the right direction—with focus, pace, and purpose.

Article based on the book The Kaizen Culture Paradox – The Smartest Way to Run a Business by Alberto Bastos and Euclides Coimbra (now available).