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grade.” The grade was everything; the knowledge was nothing. They finished the course with a piece of paper that had an A on it that meant nothing. They had learned almost nothing during the three months (the process), but they felt that they had won because of the grade they had received (the product). But what did they really gain that was of any lasting value?
    On the other hand, what choice did they have? Our culture is a bottom-line, results-oriented society. Corporations will hire a 4.0 before a 2.0 every time because they feel the 4.0 has more to offer. To them, the 4.0 is who you are and what your future potential is. With regard to this particular situation, if a student had instead said, “Forget the grade,” and expended all her energy on just learning as much of the material as possible, she would have had no valid way to represent what she had accomplished. Our culture does not recognize the value of being process oriented, even though we see so much evidence for it in the work produced by countries that do.
    Back in the midseventies, there was a real upheaval going on in the business world of manufacturing. Everyone wanted Japanese automobiles because they were noticeably higher in quality than American ones. American auto manufacturers were scrambling to understand why this was so and how to fix it. But this wasn’t a situationlimited to the auto industry. Japanese pianos were becoming popular in this country. Some of them had names people had never heard before and couldn’t even pronounce properly, but they could see the quality difference in them regardless. The Japanese were very process-oriented in their lives and work. We had trouble competing with them because we couldn’t duplicate their work environment or their mindset, which was so different from ours.
    A major piano retailer for whom I performed service related a story to me that really illustrated the primary differences between the two cultures. He had gone to Japan and taken a tour of a plant that manufactured a piano he sold in his store. While walking down the assembly line, he observed a worker whose job was to prepare the piano plate (the big gold harp assembly that holds all the strings) after it had come out of the casting. These plates are made from cast iron, and when they come out of the mold, they are pretty rough looking. The plate must undergo grinding and polishing before it can be painted. The finished Japanese plates are absolutely flawless and beautiful. As the worker prepared a plate, my retailer friend asked him how many plates he finished in a day. The Japanese worker, confused, looked at him and answered, “As many as I can make perfect.”
    The retailer asked, “But don’t you have a supervisor to report to?”
    “What is a supervisor?” asked the worker.
    “Someone to make sure you do your job correctly,” answered the retailer.
    “Why would I need someone to make sure I do my job correctly?” answered the Japanese worker. “That’s my job.”
    We can’t begin to conceive of a mindset like this. If it took all day to make one perfect plate, he had done his job correctly and fulfilled the company’s expectations of his position. The job required him to focus his mind in the present and keep it there. By practicing this right thinking, he produced the best work and maintained a fresh, uncluttered mind. One perfect plate was more important than twenty acceptable ones.
    The Japanese use of the goal (in this case, a perfect plate) as their rudder and their knowledge that this patient approach would yield a much stronger result in the long run enabled them to outcompete American factories. They completely upset the automotive and music industries, not to mention the electronics industry.
    We, on the other hand, can’t wait that long for anything. We want the product, and we want it now. Skip the process altogether and get to the product. We are obsessed with getting everything immediately. Credit card debt