I just read a sub-chapter from my book Ichigo Ichie: The Art of Making the Most of Every Moment, the Japanese Way 📘. It was inspiring, refreshing, relevant and topical. More importantly, and why I thought to post about it, it's written in such a simple way.
Ichigo Ichie, is a Japanese combination of characters, or I should better say a Japanese idiom. It can be interpreted/translated to 'in this moment, an opportunity'. This means that everything we experience in each meeting is a unique treasure that will never be repeated in the same way again. So if we let let it slip, we will lose it forever.
Ichigo Ichie, is a Japanese combination of characters, or I should better say a Japanese idiom. It can be interpreted/translated to 'in this moment, an opportunity'. This means that everything we experience in each meeting is a unique treasure that will never be repeated in the same way again. So if we let let it slip, we will lose it forever.
Ichigo Ichie at Work 一 期 一 会
Why do meetings have to be boring? Why don't we try to make meetings a bit more memorable? Even the stand-ups. Okay, not anything extravagant but why don't we do something every day to make them unique - even a slight change in our WFH backgrounds or have a 5-minute discussion about something someone might have learnt about that's not related to work? Day after day a shared and mundane routine is a sure path to apathy.
What I'm mostly referring to here is meetings with clients (if you're in that sort of business). Imagine if each meeting is a unique experience. Why do we have to stick to the common PowerPoint slides (and in my honest opinion boring and crappy MS office)? And, of course, the usual roundtable intros, 20-minute presentations and 10-minute Q&A? BOOORING!!! Side comment here - if you read my first post, the use of Microsoft Office is something I'm strongly opinionated about - I consider it beyond shitty...
Creating a unique experience for your clients (or even friends and family - it doesn’t have to be constrained to work, of course) is what will enrich the lives of those who attend. And also try to meet somewhere outside a working environment (e.g. your/their conference room). Create an experience... It's what will remain in their memories - as someone once said no one will remember what you have worn and what piece of technology you owed, but what will is how you treated them. So make sure to put in the effort, the care and time to make something memorable - after all the success is proportionate to these. As the authors, Héctor García and Francesc Miralles, said 'Be a hunter of special moments'.
