Regardless of what profession we are engaged in, all of our work can be divided into discrete, concrete tasks. For a salesman, that might involve deeply studying a product’s features, identifying potential customers and making sales presentations; for an actor, that might involve taking voice lessons, studying acting methods and memorizing scripts. How well these tasks are done separates people who are good in a profession from people who are extraordinary and people who are extraordinary from people whose work transcends their particular field and has a long-lasting impact on the world around them.
Because many tasks that we carry out as part of our work are repeated over and over, it is easy to fall into the silent trap of viewing individual tasks as part of a single, ongoing whole. Since the performance of these tasks can be generalized and projected over the span of quarters, years or even an entire career we can come to hold the belief that we will have countless chances to “get it right” or “to do our best.”
The concept of ichi go ichi e teaches that, in reality, there is only one opportunity to fully engage with everything that we do. As that chance will arrive, remain with us for only the briefest of instants and then vanish forever, it means that we must face that opportunity with deep appreciation of its transience and give it our very best. This principle is as valid for meeting a co-worker to discuss their goals for the year as it is for executing a major corporate expansion.
Ichi Go Ichi E
The expression ichi go ichi e is based on four Japanese characters, 一期一会, which literally mean “one time one meeting”. This expression has its origins in the centuries old Japanese tea ceremony, where great emphasis is placed on recognizing the transience of meetings between the tea ceremony host and tea ceremony participants.
There is a great consciousness in tea ceremony practice that sweeping the stone path before the guests arrive in the early morning, the precise nature of the weather, the particular flowers that may be beginning to bloom or just starting to fade and the silence in the tea room as the water boils are all conditions and events that will occur only once in a lifetime before they are gone. Because of the realization of their unique and fleeting nature, all tea ceremony tasks are treated with extreme seriousness, reverence and care.
Despite its origins, the expression ichi go ichi e has come to be used in many contexts in Japan outside of the tea ceremony. In the Japanese theatre form noh, for example, actors rehearse as a troupe together only once before a play is presented to a live audience. This ritual, strikingly different from many types of Western theatrical practice where scenes and performance are collectively practiced over and over again, highlights the sense, both for the actors as well as the audience, that what they are performing and watching will never be repeated.
In the martial art that I practice, kendo, there are many movements that are practiced over and over again and it is very easy for practice to devolve into a mechanical process of “going through the motions” and thinking that if a movement is not performed with all of one’s heart today because we are tired or busy it can be done tomorrow and if not tomorrow then surely the day after that.
The day after that, however, has a habit of not getting closer but moving farther and farther away into the future. This silent divide, at times so hard to see when it is right before us, between opportunities that are fully seized versus those that slip irretrievably away, can have a great impact on our work, our businesses and our lives.
If we imagine ourselves for a moment on a misty morning on October 21, 1600 in Japan’s Gifu Prefecture in the famous Battle of Sekigahara and facing an opponent with a sword who is prepared to fight to the death, there is no luxury to wait for the day after tomorrow, tomorrow or even an hour to meet the adversary’s challenge. The time to rise to the occasion and fight with all our heart is literally right now or never.
Business Tasks and Ichi Go Ichi E
Every job can be reduced to a collection of tasks and encounters. It is quite easy to see many daily tasks, such as reviewing reports, meeting with co-workers and calls to clients as a monotonous grind that will be repeated so many times that they do not require special attention. But ichi go ichi e means that when a co-worker approaches you with a new idea, or a constructive comment on something you are working on, that very moment is unique. This transience is a call to make that fleeting moment as great as it can possibly be.
Another easy trap to fall into in business when considering tasks is to divide them into items that are “important” and “unimportant” and allocate our energies accordingly. But over and over again business history has taught us that what may look unimportant is in fact of crucial importance.
Some people may think that how clients are treated is more important than how employees are cared for, but if employees are not treated well client service will often decline which will negatively affect the whole firm. Generating revenues may seem much more important than controlling costs but if the same amount of energy is not put into fiscal oversight the firm may waste scarce resources which will, in one way or another, affect financial performance. The smallest and largest tasks, in other words, are often one and the same.
Further, every task, large or small, provides exactly the same opportunity to do something well or do something poorly. Both of these outcomes come from a mindset, an approach to practice and our work habits. The more we practice facing tasks and doing them well, the more our ability to do tasks well improves. This allows us to progressively take on tasks of greater and greater complexity which require wider skill sets and broader sensitivities.
Conclusion
While it may appear that participating in a tea ceremony in a quiet teahouse in Kyoto has little to do with mergers and acquisitions on Wall Street, they in fact are both the culmination of many small tasks executed very well. Ichi go ichi e teaches that whenever you face one of those tasks, regardless of how insignificant it may appear, it should treated with reverence and be done as best you can, because it will not come again.
Turning this focus into a discipline has the ability to transfer a task into fulfilling business initiative, a fulfilling business initiative into a fulfilling job and a fulfilling job into a fulfilling career. And it must be remembered that the tasks which made up victory in the Battle of Sekigahara determined the course of Japan’s history for over two hundred years. Whether we realize it or not, each of us stand on that misty battlefield every day.