Robinson is the principal of Robinson Consulting Group and a participant in the Columbus Foundation cohort engaging with the Columbus' Community Dialogue Policing initiative.
Corporate leaders, at least those who are successful, are always seeking ways to improve their businesses. Those seeking to improve social and civic leaders should take a page from corporate executive, particularly those who practice Lean Six Sigma.
LSS merges the efficiency-focused Lean principles developed by Toyota in the 1940s with the quality-centric Six Sigma strategies introduced by Motorola in the 1980s. This combination aims to eliminate non-value-adding activities in production processes. A key tool in this discipline is Kaizen, a Japanese concept meaning "change for the better," or continuous improvement. Rooted in the principle of small, incremental changes leading to significant improvements over time, Kaizen is instrumental in enhancing productivity and quality.
Typically, business leaders enable subject matter experts to engage in week-long workshops, fostering collaboration to develop process changes that yield cost savings or time efficiencies. Emphasizing teamwork, personal discipline and morale, Kaizen also advocates for quality circles and proactive improvement suggestions.
I am a firm believer in the broader applications of Kaizen, seeing great potential for its principles to be adopted by citizen engineers, extending its impact beyond the corporate world.
The need for citizen engineers is becoming increasingly important in our society. These individuals leverage their technical skills to address social and civic issues, bridging the gap and adapting to societal challenges. Citizen engineers embody the "people power" vital to democratic infrastructure and social uplift. Citizen engineers, equipped with conceptual practices found in Kaizen, can become helpful in effecting change in our nation and beyond. World-class corporations understand that a continuous improvement culture is necessary to contend with new competitors, innovations, disruptions and disruptors. Perhaps it is time that we apply this approach beyond distribution centers and back office functions to communities seeking to design a better future.
The application of Kaizen by citizen engineers for social innovation is rooted in the belief that all areas of life can improve. While Kaizen, in a corporate setting, targets productivity and efficiency, its application in social innovation aims to improve the quality of life in community development and enhance structures. For instance, they can address the challenges of sustainable urban development through the collaboration of entities that often gather together. By applying Kaizen, engineers gradually improve waste management systems, transportation, and energy usage, leading to greener cities.
Additionally, Kaizen could aid in strengthening education systems. Citizen engineers can implement technological solutions to enhance the learning environment incrementally. They can create interactive learning tools, develop systems for efficient knowledge transfer, or even design infrastructure that promotes learning. Over time, these minor improvements can significantly transform the education landscape.
I share in the optimism and power of Kaizen to tackle social inequalities. Citizen engineers can develop and implement solutions that gradually reduce disparities in health care, income and social services, from creating affordable medical devices to developing platforms for job opportunities.
However, Kaizen for social innovation has its challenges. It requires a shift in mindset from quick, radical changes to incremental, continuous improvement. The perspective shift demands patience, commitment, a long-term view of success and most importantly, sustainability. Furthermore, it necessitates understanding of societal issues and the community's involvement in the change process.
An important thread to any successful facilitator of a Kaizen is the spirit of curiosity and effective questioning. It unlocks information and awareness needed for authentic connection. Citizen engineers ought to be adequately trained and supported in using Kaizen with a people-first approach. They need to understand the Kaizen philosophy and methodology and how to apply it in a societal context. They should be encouraged to collaborate with communities, local governments and nonprofit organizations to identify areas that require improvement and implement relevant solutions. The goal is to be a catalyst for the change, simultaneously allowing those organizations to create and own the outcomes that were created.
Kaizen aligns with the ethos of “people power,” empowering individuals to effect change in their communities through continuous, incremental improvements. While it presents particular challenges, citizen engineers can use the Kaizen methodology to contribute significantly to civic and social society with the proper support and experiential environment.
An emergent application of Kaizen to social enterprise can be found in a cohort of community leaders and the Columbus Police Department. CPD's Community Dialogue Policing aims to foster better relationships between police and community members, focusing on open dialogue, understanding and mutual respect. The aim is that, over time, earnest dialogue, deep engagement and cooperative design will lead to incremental, consistent improvements, resulting in a positive shift in community-police relations, thus mirroring Kaizen's ethos of continuous improvement.
The future of social innovation lies in the hands of citizen engineers, a hybrid of two skill sets that have application in a multiplicity of arenas. “ The Medici Effect ” by Frans Johansson makes the argument that key innovations that have impacted our world arose as a result of interconnecting concepts, ideas and products. This cross-pollination of Kaizen framework and cultural awareness could be the answer for sustaining the change that our communities need. With the Kaizen methodology, citizen engineers can take these small steps over time to create a better community, nation and world for all.
A view of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on June 25, 2026. President Donald Trump jolted Republicans during a fiery appearance at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, scrapping a housing bill signing ceremony and clashing behind closed doors with a party rebel who challenged him over the Iran war. Trump had been expected to sign the bipartisan housing.
Only Trump doesn’t care about housing
It was August 15, 2024. Then candidate Donald Trump stepped out of his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club’s columned clubhouse to a gaggle of reporters. He was flanked by tables of groceries and signs showing the rising cost of food. Also on one of the tables was a dollhouse, meant to represent the equally alarming rise in housing prices.
It was a speech about the economy, the single most important issue of the 2024 election cycle, full of promises that went right to the heart of Americans’ anxieties. While former President Joe Biden and then Vice President Kamala Harris were contorting themselves to posture a good economy that just needed more time to recover from the pandemic, Trump was preying on voters’ very real fears of unaffordable gas, groceries, and homes. It was obviously a winning message.
In that speech, Trump promised, “We’re going to open up tracts of federal land for housing construction. We desperately need housing for people who can’t afford what’s going on now.”
As of mid-2023, there had been a housing shortage of nearly four million homes, according to the National Association of Realtors. Americans all over the country were either priced out of buying new homes due to low inventory, trapped in their existing homes by sky-high mortgage rates, or facing exorbitant rent hikes thanks to corporate investors buying up rental properties. Americans needed help, and Trump promised it.
Cut to March of 2026, when Trump reportedly told House Speaker Mike Johnson, “No one gives a sh*t about housing.”
That kind of thinking may explain why Trump this week suddenly announced he was canceling a signing ceremony for the bipartisan “21st Century ROAD to Housing Act,” a housing bill co-sponsored by Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Tim Scott that passed the House 358-32 and was approved in the Senate on Monday.
Trump instead demanded Congress pass the SAVE America Act, his controversial election grievance bill that doesn’t have enough Republican support to get passed in the Senate.
It’s just the latest in a line of policy self-owns where Trump has seemingly intentionally made life more difficult for Republicans hoping to keep their majority. Despite midterm elections occurring in the midst of a blistering economy and an unpopular war, they were surely hoping the housing bill would give them something — anything — to brag about when they returned home to their districts.
And very much to the contrary, Americans do give a sh*t about housing. According to a recent survey by the Bipartisan Policy Center, a whopping 79% say the cost of housing is extremely or very important to them. Eighty-three percent say Congress should take action on the issue — like it just did. Eighty-nine percent say the House and Senate need to work together to pass affordable housing legislation — like they just did. And 63% say they would be more likely to vote for a lawmaker if they helped pass legislation to build more affordable homes and lower housing costs — like they just did.
There aren’t many issues that unite Americans like housing does, and very few bipartisan policy wins Congress can point to, and yet, Trump is holding that bill hostage in order to get his pet project — which doesn’t even have the support of his own party — pushed through.
If you’re trying to make sense of something so nonsensical, as I’m sure many Republican lawmakers are, it’s certainly sad but not actually all that complicated. Trump said what he needed to get reelected and then promptly abandoned his promises in order to pursue his own self-interests, even if those interests are bad for Republicans and bad for voters.
That’s just the kind of guy he is.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.