Tonight, I had dinner with one of my favorite Senseis. He is an executive at a globally prestigious company. I have known him for two years now, and I meet with him only about three times a year. Yet every time I talk to him, I learn things I can't from books or other people.
Sensei doesn't read much. He learns from intensely observing the world around him, capturing images in flash, contemplating deeply on information he gained through his five senses, relying heavily on visual images. I really admire the way he thinks, the insight he acquires from observation. It seems that he sees the world as they truly are, instead of being lead away from reality by words that are not precise or untrue.
Sensei told me of his latest thoughts on business management. He said he never liked consultants, and he still doesn't feel entirely comfortable with the new development of his thoughts. But, he feels it is the way he must pursue to innovate his company. That is, a company may have very deep knowledge about whatever that is relevant to their products, but the situation now is that many companies do not have the capability to innovate, capability of how to interpret what the customers are saying, what the business partners are saying. That is where consultants come in. Consulting companies that have proven method of drawing out these issues and interpreting them in real and correct way are highly valuable. Sensei felt that many companies work with consultants with such methods in order to learn where they stand now, in order to learn these methods and integrate them into their work process. And through this collaboration, consultants will gain further insight and learn to develop better method and process and help other clients as well. Hiring consultants will only work if it produces win-win result. Sensei is vigorously working to integrate such system into his company.
We talked about Gorin-no-sho, and The Day Seagull Soared. About Gorin-no-sho, Sensei commented, well, you know they say that the book was written by Miyamoto Musashi. But the concepts in Gorin-no-sho "feels" to him as though something out of late Edo-era school of thinking. I commented, well, it is a known fact that the original Gorin-no-sho written by Miyamoto Musashi does not exist, and it is also a known fact that the Gorin-no-sho known by all today was written three generations after Musashi's death by Musashi's deciple's lienage. Three generations after Miyamoto Musashi brings the era to the smack in the middle of the Edo era. So my mind churns. Edo era's samurai concept may have seed of Miyamoto Musashi, but maybe he never wrote Gorin-no-sho?
When we were talking of how what people say and what people do are two different things, I told Sensei of what I read today on The Day Seagull Soared. How Marxism was so hot among college students after the end of World War, and as General MacArthur disbanded zaibatsu and freed feudal landlords' lands to peasants, with intension of promoting democracy in Japan, students movements with strikes and boycotts affected the Japanese government in their employment laws and policies. Sensei said, the socialism system makes a country efficient for production and that may have been good, but for other matters, Japanese government probably wanted to do things in different ways. Then I commented, I guess they had to obey MacArther, because after all, Japan did lose the war. Now that I think about it, maybe as a country, Japan might have been ripe for Marxism, but the Americans prevention worked.
Sensei's sense of humor, clear view of the world, candid speech always give me so much to think about, so much to learn. Since I rely heavily on reading books to think, to learn, I am fascinated of his ability to learn strictly from observation, and I admire him so precisely because he is so different from me, from anybody else I know. I am so fortunate for having met him in my life.
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