Musashi

"The trick is to expand our envelope of intuitive capabilities so that the vast majority of the time, we don’t need to utilize a slower explicit decision process. The focus of our effort lies in moving the percentage of time that we can use intuitive knowledge and quick mental simulations to as close to 100% as possible. This level of skill can be deceiving when seen by others (again, think of a stage magician), because people who have it often don’t look like they’re working harder or doing things faster. They just, as Musashi insisted, get to a useful result sooner.126 This is the whole idea behind the Toyota Production System: Create a system where activities become unnecessary—Toyota has a well-defined framework consisting of categories like muri, mura, and muda127—and the whole system operates more quickly, even though the people within it don’t appear to be working harder than their competitors anywhere else."

"Musashi’s particular field, fighting to the death with Japanese swords, is not much in demand today, but his method for honing a feel for competition until it seems magical applies to anything. His method begins by working with the sword, doing basic exercises until the weapon becomes virtually an extension of the student’s arm. This is like technical excellence—learning to do the expected well. Musashi is clear at many places in his book that although such expected excellence is essential, it is not the key to victory. You cannot become so technically proficient that you are assured of winning every fight: If you achieved a 97% chance of winning a fight, which would be spectacular against people who train just as hard as you do, your odds of surviving 25 fights is less than 50%. Musashi won 60 duels, so clearly he was not thinking of taking that kind of risk. He wanted no risk at all.171 For that, one needs to develop an ability to do the unexpected and then exploit its result quickly. The key to this strategy is a different type of training, where students practice generating ch’i and using it with cheng as instinctively as they previously practiced manipulating the sword. The training…"

"Musashi summarized it, in the translation by Hanshi Steve Kaufman, which was Boyd’s favorite: Practice is the only way that you will ever come to understand what the Way of the warrior is about … Words can only bring you to the foot of the path …”"

"Musashi, who gave up bathing and other activities generally associated with personal hygiene, still insisted that his disciples be open to all areas of knowledge—that they cultivate the arts in particular—and he produced calligraphy and watercolors that are admired today. “Orient” is the key to the process. Conditioned by one’s genetic heritage, surrounding culture, and previous learning, the mind combines fragments of ideas, information, conjectures, impressions, etc., to form the “many-sided, implicit cross-references,” which become a new orientation. How well your orientation matches the real world is largely a function of how well you observe, since in Boyd’s conception, “observe” is the only input from the outside. Like the canopy on the Korean-era MiGs, anything that restricts the…"

"Instead, put yourself at the Schwerpunkt of the transformation effort. Look people in the eyes when you’re preaching the new doctrine. Lead your company in studying Sun Tzu and Musashi, discussing Warfighting, and comparing your processes to those of Toyota. Start your own Crotonville and teach there yourself."