Professionals – today’s modern Samurai?

July 16th, 2007 by Carmen Schubert
Posted in Business Ethics, Career | 2 Comments »

The work environment of the 21st century has dramatically changed – lifelong employment in a company belongs to the past. Today’s trend is towards self-employment with flexible work conditions. It is not uncommon anymore to change the employer after a few years or to start up an own business.

A full calendar, tight schedules and deadlines as well as a high work load are typical characteristics of professionals who work on parallel projects with different customers. Due to their expertise and long experiences in specific areas, professionals have a strong competitive advantage compared to others. Every day, they face the challenges of the modern business world and have to demonstrate their expertise to prevail among competitors.

We believe that knowledge alone is not enough to stay competitive and be successful in the market in the long run. It is also the spirit and the attitude that makes the difference.

Why? Today’s professionals have the skills and knowledge, but this alone is not enough. They also need to win the trust of their customers to win new business.

In our highly complex world, it is getting increasingly difficult for a customer to properly judge the work of a highly skilled professionals. Whether it is IT architecture or market research: an in-depth evaluation of the work would usually require to repeat the work. Therefore, a customer need to trust a professional that he will get the proper advice or the best solution. “Trust” is the key word here. Not only trust in the professionalism and skills, but also trust in the person that he will do his best to serve the customer.

Like the Samurai of ancient Japan, it was not just their skills that made them famous, but also their “Bushido”, their ethics and spirit. Professionals could learn a thing or two by studying the way of the Samurai…

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2 Responses to “Professionals – today’s modern Samurai?”


  1. anon Says:
    July 16th, 2007 at 2:48 pm

    Nonsense — ‘Bushido’ as you put it, was a way for daimio to keep their servants mindless enough to do things like … oh, I dunno’… kill themselves if they failed at a task. Samurai were hired swords who would kill without conscience and call it ‘pure’, blindly follow their Lord without question, and saw themselves above the ‘common’ person – nice ethics. I think you might want to read some actual history about feudal Japan, and stop watching Tom Cruise movies.
    We have all together too much of this already in the ‘market place’.

  2. Klaus Wiedemann Says:
    July 16th, 2007 at 4:38 pm

    Well, start reading is always a good way to enhance one’s knowledge; we strongly encourage you to do this. For beginners,
    Bill Diffenderffer’s book “Samurai Leader” might be a good introduction for someone not familiar with the topic.

    Especially interesting is the idea of a “code of ethics”, a set of self-imposed rules which have been considered essential for being a Samurai.
    True, some of them are rooted in the feudal system, and some of them directly relate to the Samurai role as a warrior, so they do not translate directly into the 21st century (as most ancient books do not directly translate in modern times).

    However, there are also rules and ideas we consider timeless and worthwhile contemplating about their implications for business.
    It’s also about setting high personal standards, and it’s about about respect for others.
    Starting an anonymous post on a blog with “Nonsense” probably fails this test.

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