Tying Things Together

Musubi is a simple Japanese word that, in everyday language, means “tying knots” or “tying things together.” In aikido, it stands for a deep connection with yourself that enables you to connect to the natural world around you—and to your opponent. For Ueshiba, this connection became so powerful that it enabled him to literally see what was coming next. Of course, not all aikido students develop such a powerful sense of musubi. But connection is at the foundation of everything we do in aikido.

It's All about Connection

Focusing on the principle of musubi has been useful for me in building several businesses. It's actually completely changed the way I hire people. I used to hire based on content. I would write out a job description and list the qualifications I thought the person in this position would need: a bachelor's degree, three years of experience in a similar position, and so on.

Hiring that way got me people like Alex. Alex had gone to college on a double athletic scholarship. He had a bachelor's degree in communications and a master's in sports management. He had experience developing youth sports programs, which was exactly what I was looking for at the time—someone to help build out my aikido academy's youth classes. On paper, it was a total home run. I met with him for an interview and we really hit it off. So I hired him.

Six months later, we both agreed it had been a horrible mistake. Alex's passion was baseball. He'd had great success in his previous job because he was building a youth baseball program, doing something he loved and giving a younger generation a chance to experience this game that meant so much to him. He was technically qualified for the position at my school, but his heart wasn't in it in the same way. He didn't have a passion for aikido, and that meant he didn't really fit in with the corporate culture I had created.

So, after six months, Alex and I parted ways. And this time, I advertised the position in a completely different way. Instead of hiring based on content, I hired for context. I advertised the position to my existing adult membership—everyone who was taking classes at my elite aikido academy. I didn't say anything about qualifications. I just said, “If you are passionate about aikido and passionate about the environment we are creating here, come talk to me.” Instead of looking for the right resume, I was looking for musubi—that deep connection that can't be faked.

That's how I found Ryan, the person who has since become my trusted business partner and the executive director of my aikido academy. That's also how I've hired for other positions since then. And since I hired Ryan and started looking for musubi above all, our revenue has increased exponentially, creating the solid foundation that has allowed me to expand my coaching, consulting, and speaking business. Without that foundation of musubi, none of what I'm doing now in my business would be possible, such as writing this book!

It doesn't matter what position I'm hiring for. I believe everyone in an organization needs to have that same sense of connection to the place and to the mission, or the whole business will suffer.

Many of us have experienced a lack of this kind of connection from the employee's side. Without musubi, without a true, deep connection to the work that you're doing, going to the office is just a misery from start to finish. Your alarm goes off and you immediately feel that dread right in the pit of your stomach. You drag yourself out of bed. You yell at the other drivers on the road or seethe inwardly at that annoying guy taking up too much space on the train. You slump in your desk chair, you scroll through Facebook, you take a million coffee breaks, you do anything you can to avoid facing the reality that this is your job and you're stuck here until 5:00 PM.

As a business owner and entrepreneur, I don't want anyone working for me to feel that way. Even one person who lacks connection can drag the whole team down. That's why I now focus on musubi above all else when I hire people. If you have a passion for the work, you can learn everything else you need to know. If you lack that connection, you're always going to be struggling to fit in and to meet your goals.

Building Musubi: Start with Self-Interest

So how do you create this kind of connection, personally or professionally? Musubi starts with something I like to call enrollment. You can't lead a team through guilt, fear, or obligation. You have to enroll people in the mission you're pursuing. You have to connect them to that mission. And that begins with showing them the way the mission benefits them, so they are truly inspired to carry out their assigned tasks with excitement and passion.

We're all motivated, to some extent, by self-interest. Enrollment begins here—at the moment when we see what's in it for us. If you're managing a team at work, this step can be fairly simple. If the team does well, the company does well, and if the company does well, we all keep our jobs. Easy enough. But you'll create a more powerful sense of connection if you also show your team some less tangible benefits—acknowledgment for a job well done, the chance to do more challenging or interesting work, and so on. The key is to see the situation through their eyes—what would you want if you were in their shoes?

Many people lose this ability to see the world through their team's eyes once they get promoted into a managerial role. As a manager, you're suddenly responsible for the success or failure of the whole team. You're accountable for the team's bottom line. You're looking at a much bigger picture. It's easy to lose sight of what it's like to be an individual contributor. If you manage a team, it's crucial that you remember where you came from and maintain your ability to relate to each and every employee on your team. If you lose this ability, you'll lose the connection you need to your team.

You can create enrollment in your personal life, too. Say you've set yourself a goal of losing 20 pounds. This will mean some lifestyle changes—you'll need to get up early to go to the gym, which means you'll need to go to bed earlier. You'll need to cut out sweets, keep tempting snacks out of the house, and plan healthier meals. All of that affects your spouse, so you'll need to enroll them in your mission—and you can start with their simple self-interest. If you achieve your goal, you'll be happier and healthier. Maybe you'll feel more confident going out dancing with them. Again, look at the situation through their eyes and think about what would motivate them to enroll in your mission. When that alarm goes off at 5:00 AM, you want your spouse cheering you on, not grumbling about the early hour.

Deepening the Connection

Of course, enrollment shouldn't stop there. Self-interest is too narrow to keep people motivated over the long haul. If you're leading a team at work, you need to help members see beyond their self-interest and get them enrolled in the company's broader mission. Researchers at Middlebury College in Vermont and the Institute for the Study of Labor in Bonn, Germany found that workers who believe in their company's mission produce 72 percent more than workers who don't.² We all need a sense of mission to keep us going.

Enrolling a team in a mission starts with your ability to appeal to their self-interest—but true musubi comes when you can persuade them to also see the situation through your eyes. You do this by opening up to them and allowing yourself to be transparent. Talk to the team about why meeting this quarter's goals is important to you. Maybe you need to prove that the team can take on a big challenge, so that you won't find yourselves broken up and shifted around to other parts of the organization. Maybe you had a conversation with a client or customer that really brought home to you that your team needs to do better at customer service. Maybe you spoke to someone who doesn't use your company's products and you saw an opportunity to change that person's life for the better.

Whatever it is, open up and talk about it. Show your team what the world looks like from where you sit—they will thank you for it. Keep in mind that if you are not completely transparent, honest, and open with your team, they will sniff it out in a millisecond, and your connection—your musubi—will be broken.

The same goes for enrollment on a personal level. Let's go back to that weight-loss example. Talking to your spouse about how you'll both benefit if you achieve your goal is a good start—but imagine how much more committed they'll be to supporting you if you're willing to open up and be vulnerable and talk about why this goal is important to you. Tell them how that extra weight affects your self-esteem and your confidence. Tell them you're afraid because of your family's history of heart disease. Tell them about your vision of the future and how losing this weight will make that future better. Let them see through your eyes why you're working toward this goal. Help them see how your interests can be aligned—exactly how the goal will benefit both of you. That's how you create a true connection.

Enrolling someone in an effort to achieve a common goal is one way to create musubi. It starts with your effort to see the world through the other person's eyes, and it is greatly strengthened when you show the other person how the world looks through your eyes. A true two-way connection like this is incredibly powerful. A team running on musubi is practically unstoppable.

Working without Musubi

A team without this kind of connection is doomed to failure. I've seen this happen many times. Far too many businesses fail to develop this kind of connection with their employees or their customers—and that failure comes at a significant cost.

Back in 1995, I was working as a consultant in Japan. Part of my work involved advising non-Japanese companies on how to set up branch offices in Japan. I'd help them hire bilingual staff and navigate cultural differences. I always advised companies to go into the Japanese market on their own—I learned that joint ventures were pretty much doomed to failure. There could be no true musubi between a Japanese company that's established in its own market and a foreign competitor trying to break in. The advantage is all on the Japanese company's side. The interests aren't truly aligned.

In 1995, at the Tokyo auto show, my Japanese colleague Hitoshi and I saw my theory about joint ventures proved perfectly. One of the Big Three American automakers was rolling out a new car for the Japanese market at the show. It had been produced in a joint venture with a major Japanese manufacturer. This car was one of the centerpieces of the show. The American manufacturer was putting a lot of marketing muscle behind it. And it was a total disaster.

Hitoshi and I checked out the car together. As we looked, he started listing everything that was wrong with it, and I started taking notes. I stopped writing after about 50 points. Everything, from the size of the seats to the layout of the dashboard, was wrong with this car. It was like the manufacturer had never even spoken to a Japanese person. They had no real connection to the market or the consumer they were trying to reach.

American automakers have repeatedly failed to make any real headway in the Japanese market. Protectionist tariffs play a role, of course, but commentators have also noted that American manufacturers just aren't making the kinds of cars Japanese people want to buy. They don't produce enough right-hand-drive vehicles,³ for one thing. American cars are not energy-efficient enough. They're not styled to appeal to Japanese consumers. They stick out instead of blending in.⁴ American automakers have never been able to establish the kind of connection to the Japanese consumer that they would need in order to sell cars in that market.

You Can't Sell without Musubi

How many times has this happened in your life? How many times have you tried to sell something to someone who just doesn't want it? Maybe you've felt this way at a job interview, where you can feel yourself desperately trying to twist your résumé to fit what the hiring manager seems to want. Maybe you've tried to sell yourself to a date by pretending you're into football or hiking or dog shows or whatever it is the person seems to want. Maybe you've tried to get a four-year-old to eat brussels sprouts. Whatever the situation, without a true two-way connection—without musubi—you're just not going to make that sale.

I use this principle of musubi all the time in my consulting and speaking business. If I went into an organization in the unconnected way that this American automaker went into Japan, I would never make a sale. I can't just walk into an organization with a laundry list of my programs and accomplishments. I need to look at the situation through their eyes and understand what problems they're facing. I need to connect to what they need before I can approach them as a potential partner.

The connection has to go both ways—I have to be able to see through their eyes, and I also have to be honestly representing myself. If what they need is “corporate entertainment”—a keynote speaker who is just going to entertain their senior VPs with the latest business clichés and fads—then I'm not going to be the right fit. I need to look for organizations that need what I can provide—a business transformation process that will create organizational clarity and lead to peak performance. In order to succeed as a keynote speaker, I have to truly connect with each person in the audience, whether I'm speaking to 10 people or 10,000 people. That means I have to be truly open, transparent, and authentic about what I'm trying to do—or the audience will be able to tell immediately that I'm not really connected to my message.

That's why it's so uncomfortable to sit across from a potential employer or partner and try to pretend you're someone you're not. Because that connection isn't going both ways. You've connected with them well enough to understand what they're looking for, but you've lost your connection to yourself. And that means you're blocking the other person from truly connecting with you as you really are.

Turning a Company Around by Cultivating Connection

Anne Mulcahy took over as the CEO of Xerox at a pretty dark time for the company.⁵ Xerox had been losing money for six years, and it looked like the company's next step would be into bankruptcy. A few years later, she had led a complete turnaround, paid off the company's debt, and brought it back to profitability. When she retired in 2009, the company was feeling the strain of the recession, but Mulcahy was still credited with the enormous success of pulling it out of its tailspin.⁶

How did she do it? Mulcahy's first step as CEO was to go on a 90-day listening tour, talking to people within the company and to customers about what was going wrong and how they could improve. According to news reports, she told employees, “I will fly anywhere to save any customer for Xerox.”⁷ She started with musubi. She started by rebuilding the connections between the company and its employees, and between the company and its customers. Even after the company returned to profitability, she continued to focus on client service as a top priority. And as a leader internally, she has said she focuses on hiring people who are a good fit with the company's culture and values, and on creating an environment that values honest feedback for employees.⁸

Mulcahy came up through human resources, and she has said that experience taught her the crucial importance of open communication. I believe she succeeded in turning Xerox around largely because she valued communication and connection so highly. She valued musubi, and she was able to rebuild the connections the company needed to succeed.

Under Mulcahy, Xerox also refocused its efforts on sustainability.⁹ The company worked on reducing waste and ensuring that its copiers could be “remanufactured,” or completely recycled into new products. This effort reconnected the company to its own core values and the values of many of its customers. This represents another kind of musubi: a connection to yourself that anchors you in your true values and focuses you on your true long-term goals instead of short-term gains.

Putting Musubi into Action

A few years ago, I was invited to start teaching aikido to staff at CIA headquarters and at the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), an elite, little-known organization that draws its members from the CIA, FBI, and military Special Forces. NCTC was created after the September 11 attacks to fight terrorism and prevent attacks before they happen. You've heard the expression “the tip of the spear”? Well, NCTC is the razor-sharp edge of the tip of that spear.

I taught aikido to men and women who were working some of the most challenging, dangerous jobs in the world. Some of them spent their lives in windowless rooms, analyzing intelligence reports. Some of them traveled constantly, working on the ground in foreign countries. For all of these people, musubi was one of the parts of our aikido lessons that resonated the most.

We talked a lot about musubi. Aikido is a grappling art. It's not like fighting with a weapon, where you're keeping your opponent at arm's length. It's not even like boxing, where you're primarily focused on striking your opponent. In aikido, you're in close contact with your opponent. Someone is grabbing you, and you have to be able to feel their strength, feel their resistance, and sense their intentions. You can't just impose your will on them. You have to develop that connection, that feeling, that allows you to surpass your ego, fear, and strength.

Connection is at the core of successful intelligence work. Analysts and other CIA officers have to able to connect and see through the eyes of the individuals and groups they're studying. This can be a huge challenge for them—after all, they spend their lives pursuing people who want to attack and harm the country they love. It would be easy for them to see these people only as alien enemies. You hear this kind of rhetoric all the time from politicians, unfortunately—terrorists are described as “evildoers” who “hate freedom.” Any analysts who bought into this kind of simplistic, black-and-white view would have a very hard time predicting their target's next move. Instead, the men and women I worked with had to find a way to connect with their targets and understand them as people in order to understand their intentions and predict what they would do next.

Analysts and operatives also have to connect with one another. Analysts are the brainpower of the counterterrorism effort. They're brilliant, they're thoughtful, and they're careful. Operatives are the ones who do the work on the ground. They're courageous, committed, and willing to take risks. It would be easy for each group to dismiss the other. And yet it's crucial for these two groups to connect for success. They need to be able to see through each other's eyes. In the case of the CIA or NCTC, visceral application of musubi—connection to self and others—can literally save countless lives.

Any business needs to develop this type of deep connection between disparate groups of people—sales and tech support, management and the rank-and-file, and so on. If people working this kind of high-stakes, challenging, dangerous job can find strength and success through musubi, what might it be able to do for you? What would connecting more deeply with your colleagues allow you to accomplish? How could learning to see through your customers' eyes change your business? How would building a deeper connection with your friends, family, or spouse change your life?