You adopt two attitudes towards "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" in two similar ways: 1) Don't try to fix it or you might break it! 2) If it ain't broke then

You adopt two attitudes towards "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" in two similar ways: 1) Don't try to fix it or you might break it! 2) If it ain't broke then you can still try to improve it. The reality is that there is a balancing act between the two. On the one hand, a process or system might be so delicate that any attempt to improve it will be difficult and dangerous. On the other hand is the attitude that the author of the article takes: it's dangerous to become satisfied with the current state of affairs just because it's difficult to make changes. I like the fact that he mentions Toyota. The concept of continuous improvement immediately makes me think of Japanese companies and I'm sure we can think of many that became very successful by employing the following ideas: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaizen http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaizen