Shu Ha Ri in Modern Management: Meaningful Practice or Just Hollow Words?

Consultants detected Shu-Ha-Ri for skill development, a form-based concept in the Japanese fine arts, and promote it as “an old martial arts concept”. But first, Shu-Ha-Ri, which stands for “follow the form>break the form>transcend the form”, is “invented tradition” in modern budo and was not used in the traditional Japanese martial arts. Second, business problems with unknown solutions don’t seem to have standardized “resolution forms”, which would be the logical axiomatic necessity for Shu-Ha-Ri application. Third, Shu-Ha-Ri philosophy of circular phases contradicts linear Western learning models of one-way progress, thus establishing an important difference between mental-spiritual-senso-motoric skill-development for sports and artists, versus cognitive-intellectual-social skill-development for science and rational problem-solving. The Shu-Ha-Ri concept seems to be predominantly a catchphrase, but it has the psychological advantage of being “something Japanese” at a time when Japanese management thought and Japanese fighting arts are well regarded.