Biz道場: A New Way to Inspire Engagement
- It is based on the concept of Biz道, which has been developed directly from the Philosophy and Principles of the Japanese Martial Arts.
- It transforms a company into a “Dojo” (which is the Japanese name for the place of learning or training in the Martial Arts), where the President, Executives and staff join together with the shared vision to achieve their goals together as a team.
Biz道場 (Biz-Dōjō)
A New Management System for Learning Organizations
The Biz-Dojo system is a new type of management system that brings the Spirit of Biz道 into the inner workings of today’s companies.
Creating your company’s Biz- Dojo will require the efforts of many people within your company, including you yourself as the Leader. Especially as you guide the use of this system throughout your organization, new and more effective “techniques” that can be passed on to future generations of Leaders will be developed.
Within a Biz-Dojo, senior executives and the entire work force align themselves to look in the same direction, proudly celebrating their achievements and challenging each other to attain results at higher and higher levels. This type of “mutually beneficial” challenge is called 自他共栄 “Jita Kyoei” (pronounced Jee-Tah Kyoh-Ay) in Japanese, and as I will explain later in this book, it is one of the fundamental concepts to apply within a company’s Biz- Dojo.
In an actual Martial Arts Dojo, Masters and Students share the same purpose and goals, and study together to find the special capabilities of each practitioner regardless of skill, talents or physical limitations. They do this in order to help refine and “polish” techniques to become more and more effective for those who use them. This process creates an environment of mutual respect and trust, which creates a virtuous feedback loop of creating a stronger and better Dojo.
I created this Biz- Dojo System to help you and your entire team to foster this same Spirit of mutual respect and trust within your company. However, in creating your Biz- Dojo please make sure that you clearly understand the deep meanings underlying each of the 5 Principles. Only those executives who use the Biz- Dojo system together with the Principles of Biz-Dō will be able to see and understand the road to Business Mastery for themselves and their companies. If you do not fully understand the heart of these Principles, and instead try to use this system based on a different meaning or purpose, it will be very difficult for you or your company to attain any positive results.
My heartfelt wish is that today’s business leaders will master Gyoku Shin and become sensei or teachers who will lead their company’s towards a bright future. And bydoing this that your company will be transformed into a Business Dojo, where the teachers (or sensei) and students (deshi) are drawn together with a deep level of mutual respect and appreciation, who can then achieve unprecedented levels of success. I hope that this is the future for you and your company!
– Yoshie Sugai, President The SugaiLabo, LLC