BOSTON -- American executives, befuddled over Japan's growing industrial dominance, are turning to a 337-year-old book on Samurai sword strategy to try to learn the mystique of Japanese business techniques.
The U.S. market has been flooded with books like 'Japan As Number One,' and 'Theory Z.' But these tomes now are being replaced along Wall Street and in businesses across the United States by 'A Book of Five Rings.'
It was written by Japan's Miyamoto Musashi, a 'kinsei' or 'swordsaint,' as he was dying in a cave in 1645. The slim, 96-page book is subtitled 'A Classic Guide to Strategy,' but U.S. publishers have added another -- 'Japan's Answer to the Harvard M.B.A.'
Musashi, who killed more than 60 men in duels and was considered invincible as a swordsman, attributed his success to a blend of Zen, Confucianism, and Shinto philosophies, and rigorous daily training.
The Five Rings are Musashi's chapters: The Ground Book, Water Book, Fire Book, Wind Book, and The Void, describing masterful methods of Kendo, The Way of the Sword, and the way to attack an enemy.
To some Americans, that has come to mean how to attack a marketing campaign -- or a competitor. First published in the United States by Overlook Press in Woodstock, N.Y. in 1974, the book sold mostly to a martial arts audience and later was the basis for the best selling novel, 'The Ninja.'
When George Lois, a New York advertising executive returning from a trip to Japan, wrote in a newspaper column that Musashi's book was one answer to Japan's rising sun in the business world, sales went crazy.
'The calls from across the country were quite amazing. We got General Motors and everybody,' said Mark Gompertz of Overlook Press.
More than 120,000 copies have been sold. The book, in its 11th printing, is a new selection in the Fortune Book Club aimed at a business audience.
What is the appeal?
'It has to do,' Gompertz said, 'with the whole mental discipline and the planning of strategy that is so essential to marketing any product in America.'
The publishers said many Japanese businessmen use the book as a guide for business practice, running sales campaigns like military operations with the same energy that motivated Musashi.
Although the book has become an underground best seller read by top executives in many U.S. corporations, some of them say it is of no use in Western culture and the frantic pace of a business world that demands short-term profits.
Musashi, of course, didn't know a debit from a long sword, but he described his work as useful 'for any situtation where plans and tactics are used.' He said daily conduct should be guided by following 'The Way,' and described his philosophy as also thinking honestly, knowing the ways of all professions, developing intuitive judgment, paying attention to trifles and to 'do nothing which is of no use.'
'If you learn and attain this strategy you will never lose, even to 20 or 30 enemies,' wrote Musashi. 'You must utterly cut the enemy down so that he does not recover his position.'
At Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Dean George Allio of the school of management bought 60 copies for his business clients and other faculty members.
'Business needs to be approached as though one were a warrior.' Allio said. 'I get people who call up and say on what page can I find it. They think you'll read the book and know how to do it.
'The issues are more attitudinal and philosophical. They have to do with the notion that management is more than methodology. You have to learn to integrate and synthesize and use your intuition.'
The book has been used by IBM executives. One Texas businessman said it made his bar a success, but a Dreyfus Corp. official described the book as cliche ridden and 'a little rough. Its kill-the-enemy kind of competition is not our style.'
Gen Itasaka, a Harvard professor of Japanese literature, finds the book's popularity amusing. Americans, he said, are attracted to it 'like a new religion.'
What does the Harvard Business School think about its M.B.A. being one-upped?
'I never heard about it,' said David Ewing, Harvard Business Review Editor. 'I don't think anybody here has.'
