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Copying others’ improvements builds a great organizational culture.
Many organizations encourage their employees to create their own unique improvements rather than copying others’. Such an attitude of ‘Not Invented Here’ builds individual ego and discourages mutual learning.
A Kaizen (continuous improvement) culture, on the other hand, encourages copying of others’ kaizens, so that one doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel. The only caveat, I would suggest, is to acknowledge the person whose kaizen has been copied. Such a small nudge for copied kaizens does wonders in creating a culture of recognition, respect and teamwork, besides ensuring that a good process improvement done by one person spreads throughout the organization like a wildfire.
When Dr.G and I implemented kaizen in our organization three decades back, we went a step further and boldly announced that copied kaizens were actually better than the original one.