Popcorn kaizen vs life-and-death kaizen

Jon Miller blogs about Taiichi Ohno's distinguishing "kaizen by inspiration" vs "life or death kaizen".

Taiichi Ohno explains that the type of kaizen that you do when the survival of your company depends on doing kaizen is the most important kaizen. As the term kaizen becomes more popular, Ohno observes that people do kaizen that don't really need to be done.

I would agree with Jon and the commenters that so-called "popcorn kaizen" should not be ignored completely. It allows people to practice as well as allow everyone to engage. However, I would agree with Ohno, that the life-and-death stuff is more important, usually more difficult, and hence has a tendency to be avoided.