Blogs and Articles from Third Way Forum Membrs

Traditionally, especially in the areas of art and culture, the education method was based on the master-apprentice relationship and the blind trust, the unspoken code and the determination of the apprentice who strongly wanted to become a master someday were the prerequisites for a successful talent development.

In this method, there were no spoken rules and nothing needed to be justified, validated or questioned. There was only total devotion of the master and the apprentice to complete the succession of the skills and knowledge as perfectly as they could.

In this method, the teacher often tells the apprentice to do certain things without explaining why or for what. There is no end goal clarified. This teaching method was beautifully illustrated in a famous movie Karate Kid. When a teenage boy Daniel was told to wax on and wax off Mr. Miyagi’s car endlessly, he had to just keep doing it without knowing why. But one day when frustrated Daniel finally asked why he was doing it, Mr.Miyagi suddenly punched Daniel who could easily defend himself with wax-on/wax-off movements. Then Mr.Miyagi said “That was why.”

This method probably still works in the world of Sushi chef, Sumo, Kabuki and Tea Ceremony etc. But it does not work in today’s business world where knowledge and power do not necessarily come with length of experience and age any more. Also, the blind trust in the master’s guidance worked in the past only because there was a designated career path with lifetime employment. But they no longer exist in today’s Japan.

While the culture of sophistication and high quality of Japanese products are attributed to the traditional teaching method, its time-consuming nature and narrow-focus do not help business people to be agile enough to catch up with the speed of the business world.

It is of course great to have some experts in every field but there has to be diversity of people, experts and business managers, young and old, Japanese and non-Japanese etc. Experts’ depth knowledge and state-of-the-art skills work only because there are other types of people to work together with them.

Japan also has a traditional teaching of Shu Ha Ri（守破離）which is basically the similar teaching with Bloom’s Taxanomy known in the West.

Diversity, agility and adaptive leadership styles are to be much more enhanced in the Japanese management. Japanese leaders are still very slow to move things forward.

The major reason of Japanese slowness is probably the way the Japanese relate themselves to the concept of mistakes. They tend to see mistakes only as something to be avoided and do not see them as the mother of innovations.

Risk and uncertainties are different. Risks can be measured and taken. Uncertainties are no measurable and just the fact of life.

Unless the Japanese leaders change their mindset toward making mistakes more positively, Japanese companies will remain super risk averse and will not be able to bring about their long overdue transformation. If we change the teaching method in Japan, the first thing that should be changed is how to teach about making mistakes.