The Leadership Japan Series By Dale Carnegie Training Japan

“Sontaku”: The Secret Sauce For Leaders in Japan     Sontaku is a Japanese word which means to surmise or conjecture about someone else’s feelings or desires. It is often associated with another Japanese word omotenashi or superb levels of hospitality, for which Japan is rightly famous. Sontaku means supplying an omotenashi style high level service before the customer has realised they actually need that service – anticipating the customer, based on the host’s conjecture about what they might need.   Steve Jobs at Apple did that with the iPhone. We didn't realize we needed it when we were all happy with Nokia, Blackberry, etc., but now we can’t go back. Wayne Gretzky, the legendary ice hockey star made the same point, when he said “skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it is now”. Gary Vaynerchuk from Vaynermedia is famous for understanding where our “digital attention” is heading before we understand it ourselves. All of these aspects have a sontaku or conjecture element to them.   What about lea