How did Japan recover so quickly after World War II? They were assisted greatly by Americans teaching them modern manufacturing and management techniques.

One of the most renowned of these was William Edwards Deming, who pushed both the concept of Quality and Continuous Improvement.

The Japanese embraced the concept of continuous improvement so much they even invented a term for it, 'Kaizen'.

It works for manufacturing, but Kaizen is also a highly effective tool for personal performance excellence too.

Tiny improvements can have astronomical benefits over time.

Take, for instance, achievement expert Brian Tracy's Continuous Improvement Formula.

Tracy postulates that if we want to advance in any area, all we need to do is get better at doing it by one tenth of one percent a week.

It seems a ridiculously small amount to make a difference, but if we did improve by such a miniscule percentage, there would be some stunning results.

After one month we'd have improved 2%.

After a year, 24%

Allowing for compounding, we would actually double our effectiveness in 2.7 years. We would literally be twice as good as we currently are!

And after a decade we would be a massive 1004% better at whatever we chose to focus on.

Now that is staggering progress, especially when you consider that many people don't improve at all, most years.

It's surely worth taking 3 minutes to decide an area that you would like to get better at, and committing to one tenth of one percent improvement each week.

By simply aiming to get a little bit better, consistently, and measuring your progress as best you can, you will soon leave your competitors behind.

It's a tiny effort, for a massive reward.

This article is written by Siimon Reynolds, teacher at The Fortune Institute

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