I recently finished a Netflix documentary “Jiro Dreams of Sushi”. I’m always a sushi lover, but didn’t really get chance to dig deeper into the life of a legendary sushi chef. This was not just a food documentary, but more so a story about how to succeed in today’s world where people’s attentions are so easily distracted.
“You have no home to go back to, and that’s why you need to work hard.”
Jiro Ono was born in an unfortunate family. His father used to be a successful businessman and went bankrupted when Jiro was young. At the age of seven, Jiro started to work at a local restaurant and later on moved to Tokyo as an apprentice at a sushi place. His father died at his age of nine, so he rarely received parental care when he mostly needed them. And this unfortunate experience actually made him a more independent and durable person.
He had been in the sushi industry for more than 80 years (as of when the documentary was published). His work attitude was, absolutely, one of the key factors that led him to success.
“He dislikes holidays, because holidays are too long for him. He wants to get back to work as soon as possible.” His old friend described him as an extreme workaholic.
“I love my work…there’s not a time that I thought about quitting… I have made sushi in my dreams, and have sometimes jumped out of bed because of some new ideas that just came up.”
Jiro credited his success partly to his early year experience, “You have no home to go back to, and that’s why you need to work hard.” On the contrary, looking at our generations, he couldn’t help complaining, “…parents tend to tell the kids, ‘ you can return home if you don’t do well.’ And these kids turn out to be failures.” It was usually the toughest times that fostered the greatest heroes.
A good leader needs to be impatient, too
His old friend continued to describe the five essential attributes of a good chef, and Jiro has all of them:
- They take their work very seriously, and constantly perform on the highest level
- They aspire to improve their skills
- They maintain extreme cleanliness
- They are impatient
- They are passionate
A good leader cannot be the nicest person in the world, because they need to have the bravery to break the old bricks and constantly push the team to strive for better. Jiro looks like a nice, peaceful old man from the surface though, and maybe this is also why he succeeded – he is an approachable “monster”.
We may simply think the sushi business is all about labor work – as long as they take the time to practice they will be good. It’s not the case at all. What makes Jiro and his sushi great is his extreme perfectionism and strong intention to improve. “It’s never an easy job to work for my father as an apprentice. They work for free but if they stay they will be able to learn all the world-leading techniques. There was one young apprentice who only stayed for one day and disappeared for good.” Jiro’s son mentioned. Jiro asked the apprentice to constantly try and repeat the process until they reach the close-to-perfect state (as there’s never a perfect one, according to his principle). One apprentice cooked egg cakes for more than two hundred times before he finally got a nod from Jiro. And at that moment, “all was paid off.” The apprentice couldn’t help smiling when thinking of this moment.
His perfectionism also applied to his selection of the ingredients and seafood. He would rather skip one type of seafood if they appear to be not of the best than bringing home the second best seafood from the market. His attitude also influenced all the suppliers he worked with, who opted to only sell him the best of the kind. And this is why he changes the menu every day based on what he has, and this is also why people are willing to make reservation a year ahead of time to taste his 3-star cuisine.
On the other hand, Jiro didn’t follow the standard practice in the industry, instead, he created the practice that worked for him best, which later became the industry standard. His constant innovation on ways to cook seafood and rice made his cuisine unique and always ahead of his peers. Whether to massage the octopus for 30 minutes or 45 minutes, whether to cut the fish 0.5 inch thicker or thinner… all are the interesting experiments to him.
What really impressed me was a post-dinner conversation he had with a group of Japanese customers. He paid extreme attention to who the customers were, and adjust the portion as well as the dish setting accordingly. For example, he would intentionally make a larger portion for the gentlemen, and would place the sushi further left on the dish if he found out the customer was left-handed. We just couldn’t imagine this kind of considerable thoughts and attention to detail would be from an eighty-year-old grey-haired thin man.
It’s really difficult to pass a successful business onto the next generations…
His two sons were also his apprentices. They came right after they finished high school. They wanted to go to college, but their father made the life choice for them. Well, it was pathetic to some extent, but maybe it was also why some Asian family businesses lasted longer. His sons didn’t seem to blame their father for bringing them into this business. Both of them were his apprentices for more than twenty years, and the younger one started a new sushi restaurant right next door (and even the layouts and the decorations are symmetric to the one his father owns). The older son worked with his father, because “as the Japanese tradition, the older one takes on the responsibility to continue the family business.”
But will it be that easy for his sons to rewrite the legend and even outperform their father? “It would be a hard reach,” commented by Jiro’s another friend.
Jiro worked hard to equip his kids with essential skillsets to take over and sustain the business, and it seemed like his kids were 80% there. However, as is always the case, the higher up in the ladder, the more difficult to step up, even for just a tiny little step.
I guess this is one of the things that concern most successful businessmen in their late years. They have been too successful in their life, and will their kids be able to achieve the same if not more?
Anyways, I’d highly recommend this documentary. I heard there’s a Japanese restaurant right in my city run by an apprentice of Jiro. I really wanted to try it out sometime.
SweetS 