INTERVIEW
34
Archery and the artist The president of Godiva Japan, Jerome Chouchan, reveals the business teachings behind the ancient art of kyudo
WRITING
Ben Walker PHOTOGRAPHY
Martin Holtcamp
Dialogue Q1 2019
Focus on the target, or focus on your shooting? Most learner archers opt for the first option, and fail. “There is a saying in kyudo that the right shooting always results in a hit,” says Jerome Chouchan, president of luxury chocolatier Godiva in Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asia, India, Australia and New Zealand. “When you are in the archery hall, what you learn is that if your mind is taken by the target, the outcome, then your posture isn’t straight, your mind doesn’t flow, the energy doesn’t flow properly in your body, you become tense and – finally – you miss.” The problem, he says, is that by focusing on the target, your mind naturally turns to the space between your arrow and its goal. “The target is 28 metres away!” says Chouchan. “If you concentrate on where you are now, you will hit your target, which is at a distance. But if you are thinking about the distance, you will not perform properly – and you will not hit.” The teachings of kyudo translate emphatically into the business arena, says Chouchan. “If you focus on the needs of the consumer, then the financial pressure of your sales targets are away from your mind. So you do a much better job and, finally, you hit them.” At Godiva, Chouchan has drawn on his learnings to refocus the organization on four key areas, all of which are designed to reduce the ‘distance’ between the business and the consumer: better products (making the goods on offer of the highest quality); better
stores (finding the best locations and creating the most beautiful displays); better communication (advancing the most powerful advertising and marketing); better skills (better selling and welcoming from Godiva store staff). “We are very demanding of these four elements – relentless,” he says. The strategy has proved an unqualified success. In five years, Chouchan has doubled the size of the business, he says. Precisely by not focusing on his target (he was handed a goal of 2-3% growth a year), he has overseen growth of 15% annually. “In kyudo you aim for a state of ‘nonduality’,” says Chouchan. “You become at one with the target. And at that moment you release – and you hit. In business if you become like the consumer, you suddenly get good ideas and better products. There is no longer this distance – ‘I am here with a product I should push to you’ – instead I myself become the person who will buy my products. There is a state of unity. The distance between the company and the consumer becomes less and less, and that is where the hit happens.” Reducing this distance, focusing on your form in business rather than the target, becomes ever more critical the higher you climb the corporate ladder, says Chouchan. “Those distances become longer,” he tells Dialogue. “You talk to internal stakeholders, to your bosses, you become pulled by internal politics. There are many forces that prevent you from reconnecting, and you lose