I have finally gotten around to reading the Five Rings. The following lines are from Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi:
It is the beginning of October, in the year Kan’ei 20 (1643). I have climbed Mt. Iwato in Kumamoto prefecture in Kyushu. I have prayed to heaven, given worship to Kannon, and now I sit here facing Buddha. I am a warrior native to Harima, by the name of Shinmen Musashi-no-Kami Fujiwara-no-Genshin, and I have 60 years behind me.
As I write this, it is early October, and I am in my 60th year. I have climbed many physical and metaphorical mountains and I am facing nature, my calming and focusing equivalent of Musashi’s Buddha.
Musashi opens his treatise on the five rings of strategy with a discussion of modern (in 1643) Samurai “Strategic Masters” and how they just aren’t like the Samurai of old. They study swordplay only and give no thought to other disciplines. He says, “there is an obsession with colorful displays, y people showing off skills as though they are forcing flowers into bloom.”
He concludes “Unrefined strategy yields nothing but harm.”
Strategic Refinement
378 years later, I find parallels today. So many people jumping around and making colorful displays without any content or import. I find myself expecting more and seeing less.
I think it’s true that one must focus on a discipline to master it. But as challenging as that can be, it is not enough. Musashi says by thirty he was undefeated and had won 60 battles from age 13 to 29. But he found that he had not mastered the Strategic Way of the Warrier. His wins came more from innate talent and energy. He dedicated himself to study of the Way of the Warrior and mastered it over the next 20 years. But still he was not finished learning. He applied the focus he acquired from the Strategic Way of the Warrior to mastering other disciplines, so he finds himself at 60 experiencing something like true mastery.
Musashi dedicates the rest of the book to scrolls that treat each of the Five disciplines or rings: earth, fire, water, wind and expanse. He uses these to explore strategy as it applies to all facets of life, not just the Way of the Warrior.
My takeaway from this is not the time it takes to achieve mastery, but the process. There are definitely three phases to mastery: the early phase which is kinetic and driven by innate talent and energy, the second phase in which focus and study to refine the raw talent into something strategic and the third phase in which strategic impact is broadened to be all encompassing.
This approach scales from individual achievement to organizations as well. Mastering the fundamentals, refining them into a cohesive strategy and then expanding beyond the core.
Call To Action
If you’re interested in reading more about the Five Rings, there are many translations to choose from. I read the Maisy Hatchard translation published by Amber in 2020.
I hope you found something to apply to your business in this MBR. Let me know either way.
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