The Tataki-dai Principle

Have heard a lot about Japanese management principles like 5S and Kaizen, but I came across for the first time with this simple principle called “tataki-dai”, in an article about Japanese Kao Corporation. Tataki-dai proposes you to present your new ideas to others at 80 percent completion, so that they could criticize and contribute before the idea become a proposal.

If the idea get beaten up sufficiently before it become a formal proposal, more stronger the idea would be. Just like beating the cake mixture before it’s baked. Next time when you are about to propose something to someone; make sure to use the tataki-dai principle. Present only 80% of it, and let the others to criticize and contribute to sharpen the idea. After all, if you present everything at one shot you are blocking the chance of others to express their personal wisdom and more importantly denying their need of ego soothing. I believe, Japanese invented this principle with lot of psychology behind it. This is a great tool to maximize the benefits of the idea “many brains are better than just one brain”. It brings out the collaborative idea generation into life. This creates an environment in an organization, where people willing to appreciate differences in opinion. An idea in action is never a brain child of just a one person. Only 80% at maximum can a single person claim ownership in the idea. Japanese being a collectivistic culture, this makes perfect sense to practice.