TAO MANAGEMENT
Yoshifumi Taguchi
Tao Management finds its inspiration in the great classic of Chinese philosophy the Tao-de ching (Daode jing) written by Lau-tzu (Laozi) in the sixth century B.C.E.
During the Meiji Restoration just after the opening of Japan and in the early post-World War II era, top Japanese executives applied the principles of another of the Chinese classics, the Analects of Confucius, to their efforts to build a modern Japanese state. More recently, many economists have come to hold Japan’s industrial revitalization is the result of strenuous restructuring efforts by Japan’s top executives, attributing Japan’s industrial resuscitation to the introduction of Western-style management approaches.
Today, many Japanese business leaders, regard their intellectual touchstone to be the principles found in the Tao-de ching. Tao Management interprets Lao-tzu’s powerful philosophy from that perspective.
Tao Management is a convenient handbook which helps Japanese business leaders understand and practice their principal management philosophy. As these leaders work with their counterparts in China and elsewhere, they will be better enabled to communicate the story of how Japan survived and overcame the “lost decade” of the post-bubble years and of what the future holds.
Yoshifumi Taguchi was born in Tokyo in 1942. After a successful career in the motion picture industry during the 1960s, Mr. Taguchi established a consulting company, Image Plan, and has been its CEO until the present. Among other things, he lectures to corporate executives throughout Japan and Asia. The ideas articulated in Tao Management are at the core of Mr. Taguchi's management theory.
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