p.1 Western culture... takes... prior established knowledge as the only justifiable basis for effective action. Knowledge necessarily precedes action and performance. This metaphysical orientation precludes the possibility of attaining direct unmediated understanding through ongoing perfection of action... the presumed route of knowledge creation-application-performance can actually be bypassed if effective action, and not justification, is what is ultimately sought.

p.3 Rapid and revolutionary changes... have transformed the rules of competition... This trend signals the necessity for developing new theoretical frameworks and practical understandings of the strategic priorities, decisional imperatives and modes of management operating... throughout the world

p.4 'Ba', alludes to a place or epistemological platform for advancing individual and collective knowledge. It is a 'shared space for emerging relationships. It can be physical, virtual, or mental space' (Nonaka and Konno, 1998: 40). Moreover, 'Ba exists at many levels and these levels may be connected to form a greater Ba known as Basho' (Nonaka and Konno, 1998: 41). [JLJ - interesting similarity to Simon's 'blackboard' for accumulating knowledge]

p.5 Aristotle, with his insistence on visual observation and linguistic precision, tended to take articulated language as the only real route to knowledge (sophia)... knowledge is ultimately a linguistic matter and not one of empirical experience. To know is to be able to define and say precisely the 'what' of a thing and to thereby identify and locate it in a pre-established system of classification and causal relations.

p.6 Flux, change, process and the individual particularities of event-happenings do not feature in the Aristotelian scheme of things... This Aristotelian metaphysics... Its three key philosophical assumptions are: (1) that language... and precise definition are strictly adequate to a complete grasp of reality; (2) that that which is knowable is always the general or universal, never the particular; and (3) that knowledge is always about knowing the underlying causes and effects of things not their empirical manifestations. Thus, the ability to represent our understanding of these causes and their effects in precise linguistic terms constitutes what we mean by knowledge... knowledge-creation and accumulation precedes dissemination, application and ultimately effective performance.

p.7 within the context of the Western mindset, the transparency and accountability of actions and intentions are major concerns and preoccupations in their own right. Actions, intentions and outcomes have to be rendered explicit and made accountable in order to appease the various stakeholders involved... Effective performance can only be attained if one is able to clearly explain the causal links behind otherwise disparate phenomena and to thereby persuade others to one's own point of view. In this regard, theories and representations serve a vital function that has little to do with actual performance. They are justificatory devices mobilised to fend off the concerns and criticisms of various stakeholders.
The pressure for justificatory explanation is overwhelming in the Western context

p.8 The ability to perform and the ability to explain persuasively are two entirely different skills.

p.11 Although there are significant differences in the approach taken by these philosophers [JLJ - James, Nishida, Bergson, Chang], it is the insistence on the primacy of immediate experience as the starting point for genuine knowing and the subliminal performances that unites their philosophical concerns.

p.12 'we shall obtain no satisfactory results... unless we set ourselves to teaching the operative, however employed... one and the same thing... namely Sight.' (Ruskin, Works, Vol. XVI: 179).

p.12-13 For Ruskin, as for James, Bergson and Nishida, to arrive at the ability to see and experience directly and purely in an unmediated manner is a necessary precondition for genuine understanding and hence an ultimate mastery of one's art... This insistence on a return to the immediacy of the flux of life as the starting point for human comprehension provides us with an alternative metaphysical foundation or Weltanschauung for understanding Oriental attitudes towards self, knowing and performative action.

p.17 For the Oriental world, attainment of that moment of pure absolute encounter which conjoins us with a fecund and pro-generative reality constitutes the ultimate aspiration of any and all human activity... flawless performances... take place in this moment of encounter where all mediation of words and knowledge are rendered irrelevant and the immersion of the self in a seamless flow of actions is all there is. True excellence in performance and genuine creativity does not come by way of linguistic mediation but by a direct unmediated encounter with the concreteness of a specific situation.

p.18 Perfect action, for the Oriental mind, is undirected action that flows from the immediacy of the body and transcends all thought processes. The body reacts instinctively and spontaneously to each concrete situation without any prior distinction and discrimination because it has been systematically emptied of perspectives and conceptual biases.

p.19 Such obsessive aspirations to achieve that moment of unconscious perfection where the self loses itself in an uninterrupted flow of activity is well encapsulated in the perfecting of art

p.19 The market acts as arbiter and ensures a kind of 'allocative efficiency' for the product or service being provided... Exchange dictates the value or otherwise of a product or service.

p.23-24 the overwhelming urge to attain an unspeakable Absolute Nothingness from which 'artless art' and flawless performance emanate, provides us with an alternative metaphysical grounding for understanding performative action. One that relies far less on the written word and more on direct experimental action than that expected in the literally-based cultures of the West.

p.24 The overriding concern in the Orient is that unless our structures of understanding are rooted in the primordial richness of pure, concrete living experience we will be unable to achieve genuine productivity and value-creation in all our endeavours.

p.24 Continuous improvement in its more authentic sense is fundamentally predicated upon the rejection of an ultimate end-point or perfect state of being... improvement is always construed as a means and not as an end in itself.

p.25 Life is all about the ceaseless and relentless perfecting of actions, products and services, nothing more. It is this ontological restlessness which underpins the Oriental attitude towards work and leisure.