Forging Excellence: Sharpening Your Business Processes Like a Samurai Sword

Who doesn’t love swords? Swinging metallic agents of death and pain. The use of them has shaped the world as we know it, and of course, there is the obvious phallic symbolism and no one hopes theirs is bigger right? Just me, ok.

The coolest sword is obviously the Katana, the famous sword used by the Samurai. It has been immortalised in many films for its beautiful and graceful design and fighting style. It is a precision tool compared to the blunt force of the European swords.

The Katana was believed to have a soul and was cared for accordingly. Part of the attraction to the sword is its look. And how it got its look is all down to the meticulous construction process.

To Build A Sword With Soul

It all starts with the tama-hagane, steel produced from iron-rich sand. Not just any steel will do and they go to great lengths to create steel worthy of the sword it will hopefully become.

At the start, the tama-hagane has many impurities and also importantly, the carbon content is not dispersed consistently through the steel.

Too much carbon and the steel becomes very brittle and will break on impact. Too little carbon and the metal will be too soft and will not be able to create a sharp edge. The balance is these two issues is what is important.

There are two pieces made, one with higher carbon and another piece with lower carbon. These will be joined together to form the final sword.

To spread the carbon correctly, the steel is folded over on itself. This does two things, it helps spread out the carbon, and the hammering process works out impurities. The heat and the force get rid of all of the elements that will make the finished sword worse.

Folding Ideas

There is a second folding process, by folding the steel 14 times, it produces 16000 layers. This creates the distinctive pattern called the Jihada.

One of the secrets of the Japanese sword’s strength is the duality. It wants to have a softer core to give the blade flexibility, this is known as the Shingane, but it also needs a very hard edge to make that sharp cutting surface, this is called the Kawagane.

Combining these two pieces, the smith then hammers them into a long bar which creates the shape of the sword.

The famous curve of the sword is created from the structural dynamic between the harder and softer steel. After the sword is created it is ‘quenched’ into water. The two forms of steel respond in different ways causing the steel to bend and give the sword its trademark curve.

Now the sword is finished with the smithing process it is passed over to the sword polisher. The sword’s cutting edge is ground down using different-density stones to turn the blunt surface into a razor-sharp surface.

This process can take weeks or even months.

In the end, after the iron sand is found and turned into steel. Which is refined, heated, beaten, and folded, then combined together, quenched, and polished you finally have yourself something to be proud of.

Project Swords

So what does sword-making have to do with you and your team having successful projects?

The path is linear and you can’t go backwards.

You can’t get to the polishing stage and wish you had gone back and found better sand to use.

80% of a project’s success happens at the start, based on the questions you ask, the rigour you apply to what you are trying to do, and, importantly, what you are not trying to do.

It is healthy to have challenging conversations. The sword smith adds and removes carbon as required. You should add in and remove people with different expertise to make sure you fully scope and understand the project.

The wordsmith beats the crap out of the steel to remove impurities and so should you with the idea. How many different ways can you approach solving it and the first idea is probably not the best one.

Can you come up with 20 different approaches? It is time well spent if the 19th option is the best one.

Yes, the polishing takes the longest part but it is all built on the decisions before it.

We often rush to start doing the work, the polishing, but neglect all of the work that has to be done before we get to that stage. If you haven’t done that work, no amount of polishing is going to fix the problems you haven’t dealt with.