The Shokunin and their tools
Posted on May 27th, 2009 by CarlTags: leadership, shokunin, spirituality, woodworking
Shokunin -noun Craftsman, artisan.
I’ve been reading Japanese Woodworking Tools: Their Tradition, Spirit, and Use and this has caused me to start thinking about the connection we have to the tools we use to live out lives. This post is a little jotting down of my current thoughts on the topic.
The author, Toshio Odate explains that a simple definition of the shokunin cannot express the deeper meaning of the word. The shokunin is much more than a exemplary artisan. Odate describes it as follows:
The Japanese apprentice is taught that shokunin means not only having technical skill, but also implies an attitude and social consciousness. [...] The shokunin demonstrates knowledge of tools and skill with them, the ability to create beauty and the capacity to work with incredible speed. The value of an object is dependent on a subtle combination of skill and speed [...] In short, the pride of the shokunin is the simultaneous achievement of skill and speed. One without the other is not shokunin.
Reading this book, I am slowly learning about the shokunin and the way they conduct themselves and their work. In light of this, as I reflect on my own work, I find it quite lacking in many areas. One of these is the connection we have with our tools.
To the shokunin, tools are not inert objects. They consider them to be alive and part of their maker and user. They have a life and a need to be cared for and respected.
Part of this I suspect comes from the fact that most of the tools are hand made. Some are even made on the job as required. Learning the craft of making these tools is a life long apprenticeship so the standing of the tool maker is a mark of the quality and respect given to the tool. So whilst a tool may work just as well as a manufactured western version, the cost is likely to be significantly higher. That is the price you pay for the priveledge of using such a tool.
What about our Western culture?
There is a great deal of consumer culture at play in our Western society. If I need a tool, I buy it. When I have finished with it, I shelve it in the garage. When I need it again 3 years later, I either can’t find it or discover that it has rusted through, so I go and buy another one. To the shokunin, seeing a tool left to wear like this is a great shame.
As I get older I find that I begin to imbue things with more history and personality. The chair I restored recently started off as an old chair. The more I worked with it, the more I discovered that it has a history and even a story to tell. I feel that this connection is sadly missing in most things.
Other professions?
As a software developer for example, we become used to using specific tools. These tools are customised and tweaked so that they match the way we prefer to work. They therefore grow a history of their own. I know quite a few developers who whilst keeping their skills up to date, still prefer to use much older tools to perform their job. There is certainly a connection between a developer and their tools, and between a developer and the work they create. Not as strong as the shokunin but it certainly is present.
For managers and leaders there is a connection between us and the models we rely on to do our best work. This is probably not built on a meaningful spiritual connection but rather a need to reinforce our own world view. For the leader, the tools are rarely objects as all we can offer is the entirety of the person that we are (although we do enjoy latching onto email and other innapropriate “tools” at times). This is also a topic for another post I think.
Towards a stronger connection
I would like to see us grow stronger connections to the objects we use to create the life around us. Not necessarily material things, and not a connection that requires us to accumulate things. Rather a way of experiencing and treating these objects as lifes of their own. Objects that are created, used, maintained and eventually left to rest.