TRILOGY: TURNING POINT OF MY COMPANY: BUSINESS TAKUMI

In this second article of the trilogy of articles “The Turning Point of My Company,” I want to share the ancient Japanese teaching that built the concept of Takumi.

Takumi is the Japanese term used for craftsman, a profession based on human skill, a tradition still very strong in Japan, which many authors have been discussing whether it would survive with technological modernity.

In Japan, the term Takumi is used to designate people who have developed such mastery in their crafts that they have practically become unique in their respective segments. It is estimated, in fact, that this mastery comes through the achievement of 60,000 hours of practice, in other words, a true lifestyle.

Studying about the mindset of Japanese takumis, I was impressed to learn that Apple co-founder, Steve Jobs, was inspired by the work of Takumi Yukio Shakunaga, who used the Etsu Seto-yaki technique, mastered by very few people, to produce porcelain pieces. Steve Jobs visited an exhibition of Yukio’s work in Kyoto in the 1980s when he was in Japan studying the methods applied by Sony’s factories, of Akio Morita, to apply at Apple.

Yukio personally sources the raw material for his porcelain pieces from the mountains of Toyama, being the only artist in his class to know the manufacturing process from origin to finish, making him an authentic takumi.

Another example of Takumi is Katsuaki Suganuma, who has been working at Lexus for over 30 years. Katsuaki, who is a Takumi in charge of Lexus’s final inspection line, achieves inspection levels of precision that no artificial intelligence and robot technology can achieve.

This article is about this mastery. How much do we really dedicate ourselves to self-improvement? Do we really dedicate ourselves to the point of becoming unique in our crafts? And this is not limited to just craftsmanship, and in this sense, I also refer to the application of this concept in other professional activities, such as a project manager, a headhunter, a negotiator, a mason, a coach, among many others.

It is a concept that translates self-dedication to become not necessarily better than others, but rather to achieve all of your potential and connect it with your purpose in life, your ikigai.

This post is also available in: Japanese Portuguese (Brazil)