Why to share the concept of “ISHIKI (Consciousness) Management”?
I’ve written several posts on the theme of “ISHIKI(Consciousness) Management,” and I’d like to continue to send them out, but to conclude the introductory chapter, let me share with you what motivation, for what purpose, and to whom I’d like to send them out.
There are many reasons why I decided to start posting articles, but the biggest one is that I wanted to share with many people about the themes I’ve been exploring for the past year, to explore them together, and to spread the concept together.
Journey of quest spending over 1000 hours
The 17 years since I started Alue Corporation in 2003 have been a period of time in which I have been building a business in the field of adult education, as well as exploring the depths of education.
In the last year, I’ve been doing intensive research on a subject. Mr. Shunsuke Nakamura of Alue and Mr. Takahiro Hirano, who is a management consultant, have been doing research for whole a year, two days a week, for three hours each time. The time for dialogue and discussion between the three of us is about 900 hours, or more than 1,000 hours if we include the time for each of us to quest.
Actually, Nakamura-san and Hirano-san are friends of my tennis club in university. Nakamura-san joined Alue in 2006 and we have been working together since then.
While Hirano-san and I had a lot of personal connections, we didn’t get together professionally. A year ago, he came to visit me at Alue’s office out of the blue and we reported back to each other, and we realized that the theme of “ISHIKI (consciousness) and energy” resonated with our mutual interests. This is how we came to the point where we decided to do a study group together.
This process and story on how we met again and how we started to launch a new study and business is an extremely good example of what I’m going to be sending out, and I hope to share it with you in another post.
I had an intuition from the beginning that it was the right use of my time as a president of an education company. My intuition was, “This is the very essence of next education, and if it realizes, it will definitely be of great help for a lot of people.”
I’m still convinced that my intuition is right. Of course, if the concept of these articles can become a good opportunity for many people to make their lives better, it will become a true confidence.
The three of us have been quite thoughtful in our exploration of the topics I’m about to share with you, and we’ve come to feel that this will help a lot of people, or that these kinds of things will reach more people.
The theme of the quest is “ISHIKI(Consciousness) Management”
The theme is to “Make ISHIKI (Consciousness) Aware”. In other words, we can call it “ISHIKI (Consciousness) Management”.
No matter what field you’re in, you make decisions, take action, and get results. The same is true in almost every field of business, sports, academia, and almost every other field. The origin or the root source of decision-making, taking actions, getting result is “consciousness”. Everything starts from “ISHIKI (Consciousness)”.
Whether you are a new employee, a manager, or an executive,
whether you are the banker, the trader, the manufacturer,
whether you’re in sales division, research and development division, or manufacturing division,
whether you’re an office worker, an entrepreneur, a non-profit organization staff or a student,
everything starts from your consciousness. It becomes various thoughts and actions that bring about results. In some cases, you might get the good results that you want to achieve in your life story, and in other cases, you might not get the results that you want.
In other words, the most fundamental thing for us is “ISHIKI (Consciousness)”.
I came to the point of managing my own consciousness in order to live the way I really want to be, and to live the way I want to live, and I engaged in exploring how I could make consciousness aware, how I could manage it.
However, when we talk about “Consciousness Management”, it may sound rather philosophical and difficult. On the contrary, it can be applied to the problems and challenges we face every day in real business and in real life.
While there is a slightly difficult philosophical aspect of managing consciousness, the concept and the content are designed to bridge the gap between the philosophical aspect ant the real aspect.
In a nutshell, it’s something that can be put into practice right here and now. Because it’s YOUR ISHIKI (consciousness).
When you make your consciousness aware, you will be able to see with a tangible sense of what kind of consciousness leads to what kind of action, and what kind of result it returns to you. Moreover, it is not only in terms of a year, but also in terms of months, weeks, days, hours and even minutes.
While I have been on a quest for the past year, I myself have been emphasizing the importance of putting new discoveries I have made into practice and having a sense of the value of them, rather than pushing them only into theoretical category.
I hope to share the concept and the content of our exploration and practice with as many people as possible, to spread this way of thinking and to be of help for them while having a lot of feedback from you.
Tendency to be complete in my own mind
The second reason I decided to send out articles on the theme of “ISHIKI (Consciousness) Management” is because I was reflecting on the way I have been thinking and behaving in the past.
One of the things that have been, and still are, the basis of my way of thinking and behaving was to keep what I thought was good in my mind to myself. I had a strong sense of value that what I thought was good for me was not necessarily what other people thought was good. What is good is different from each other.
To be more honest, I wanted to keep conceiving that what I thought was good in my mind was always good. And I didn’t want to be hindered by what other people were saying about it.
I founded Alue Corporation in 2003, and up until now, I’ve given 120% of my time and energy to make the company grow, and I’m still in the middle of it. I’ve shared what I truly believe is good for my company, and I’ve embodied it in the form of business growth.
In terms of my character as a president, I’ve never been very diplomatic nor extravert, and I’ve always thought that having a strong inner feeling and embodying it in my business would be enough. “That’s the kind of character I am, and that’s the kind of style our company takes.”
However, as I explored and practiced “ISHIKI (Consciousness) Management” over the past year, I became aware of myself beginning to question that kind of characterization of myself.
‘Is that connected to what I originally wanted to do and accomplish?’
I started to feel that it’s not good enough to be “inside my world.”
I would like to share what I think is good, and gradually expand the circle of sympathy and resonance, and to go beyond what I here and now expect to go while receiving all kinds of feedback and assistance.
I want to live my life according to my own intuition, without being bound by the framework of what my character is like in the past.
So what kind of intuition do I have inside me?
Sharing and exploring the theme of subjective truth
The key word in my intuition is “subjective truth”. This concept contrasts with objective truths, such as the laws of physics, and refers to what each of us perceives as truth, what we think is important, and what we want to achieve.
If we use journey as a metaphor for life, the subjective truth is like the North Star, which indicates the direction you want to go. In other words, it’s like a magnetic compass that indicates the direction you want to go.
Some people may say that there is no subjective truth to aim for, or that they don’t know what they really want to do, but I think this does not mean that there is no subjective truth, but that it is not yet conscious or verbalized.
Whether or not the subjective truth is verbalized, I think we can feel a sense of happiness, contentment, and satisfaction by gradually making the subjective truth within us conscious and embodying it.
I sincerely hope that we will have a world and a society where there are many and more people living in subjective truth, and one of the expressions of my subjective truth is to contribute to the realization of such a society.
Now, at the age of 43, as I am entering the second half of my life, I would like to embark on an exciting journey that is a little different from the one I lived in the first half of my life.
I feel that my life in the first half has been fantastic and great enough by embodying what I believe is good, but in the second half of my life, I would like to share my belief and thoughts with as many people as possible, and have those people share their belief and thoughts with me.
Who do I want to read this?
Finally, I want to talk about who I want to read this.
The most abstract way to describe it is that I want to send it to every leader who is doing or trying to do the social implementation of subjective truth.
What is a leader who is trying the social implementation of subjective truth?
For example, a person in a management position in a company who has a gap between what they want to be as a team and the state of the team in reality, and who wants to close that gap somehow.
Or an entrepreneur who started a company with philosophy and passion. There is still a gap in making it work as a business, and he or she is struggling every day to bridge that gap.
Or a president of a small company who has been in his or her business for a while and runs its business successfully to some extent, but the connection to their own subjective truths has weakened, or they have lost sight of it.
Or, if you are a member of a company and you are achieving well in the organization, building good relationships with your colleagues and getting a certain level of recognition, but you are wondering if this is really what you want to be and if it is connected to the career you want to pursue.
Or you might have a clear image of what you want to do in the company, or you might have a clear vision of what you want to become, but you’re having trouble getting results in reality.
I believe that all of the people listed here are leaders who are confronting the social implementation of subjective truth.
When you think of a leader, you might think of a manager, or executive who has subordinates, but my definition of a leader is someone who exerts leadership, and by leadership, I mean that he or she takes the initiative and influences those around him or her.
Therefore, all people who try to influence those around them in a positive way, even if they don’t have the title of a manager or executive, are leaders.
For example, if a new employee has an online or offline meeting and make it easier for the meeting to proceed by preparing well, that’s great leadership, and if a cheerful greeting brightens the mood of the team, that’s also great leadership.
On the other hand, if a manager or executive doesn’t try to make a positive impact on the people around him or her by starting with his or her own, that person is not a leader by my definition.
I have given you a business example so far, but it is not limited to business.
For example, a boy or girl who loves baseball may become a professional baseball player in the future and play an active role in the game, inspiring various fans, or giving a dream to the next generation of children. I think that is also a great leader to stand up for the social implementation of subjective truth.
Or, in the world of art, a person who wants to make a positive impact on the world by presenting what he or she wants to express as a work of art and inspiring people with new values and perspectives is also a great leader.
Or a staff member of a non-profit organization who wants to eliminate the problem of educational disparities caused by poverty is also a great leader.
When you give these examples, you may get the impression that you have to try to accomplish something very big, which is a stoic impression. Or, some people might think, “I don’t have the confidence to take on such a challenge.”
Anyone can do it, and in fact, everyone is doing it.
It’s okay to begin with one person close to you. If you want to do something for someone who is important to you or close to you, that’s enough.
Also, when we talk about the social implementation of subjective truth, some people may say that they don’t have the energy or strength to do it or that they can’t afford it.
A “social implementation of subjective truth” is like a journey of one’s life. It’s okay to feel comfortable enjoying the journey.
So, enjoying the journey of social implementation of subjective truth is something that anyone can do if they want to. It’s like noticing what’s there. The seeds for the flowering of subjective truth are already all around you. All you have to do now is turn your attention to it and water it.
In this way, the social implementation of the subjective truth is something very close to us and can be done by anyone if they want to.And I would like to bring a message to all those leaders who want to enjoy the journey of social implementation of subjective truth, that can give them a little assistance or provide a new option.
Here are the quests with regard to this article. (If you’d like, please post in the comments.)
・What are some of the good things that might come out of “ISHIKI (Consciousness) Management” for you?
・What words come to mind to express your subjective truth that you feel here and now?
Bunshiro Ochiai
