Ogori Cafe - a metaphor for your business strategy

We picked up a fascinating blog post on the wires this week - and whilst it's a fun idea for a cafe, it's an evening more interesting thought starter for the subject of corporate strategy.

Either way, it's guaranteed to strike an interesting emotional reaction in most people.

The idea is simple - here's PSFK's description of the concept:

"Cabel Sasser brings word of a mysterious cafe that he recently experienced in Kashiwa in Japan. Located inside the Urban Design Center Kashiwa-no-ha, the Ogori cafe looks innocuous enough, but holds a surprise in store for its patrons.

In a nutshell, you get what the person before you ordered, and the next person gets what you ordered. Thus, if you’re in on the game, you can choose to be either a generous benefactor, and treat those that come after you – or try your luck at being cheap.

Either way, it’s an interesting experiment that explores surprise, kindness and encourages interactions.

As I sat down to enjoy my surprise Appletizer, loving this insane idea and wondering what would happen if you tried it in America, a Japanese woman approached the cafe. Since she could actually speak Japanese, she could read the large sign at the front and, fortunately or unfortunately, got advanced warning of what she was in for.

Before making a final decision on what to order, she quietly snuck up to me to try to ask me what I had ordered, knowing that it would be her unwavering refreshment destiny. The staff put a quick stop to her trickery, and I didn’t answer.

Of course, regardless of what she ordered, she got the orange juice I ordered a few minutes earlier. But here’s one of the moments that make this experiment cool: she actually chose orange juice, just like I did. So she got what she wanted. Ogori cafe synchronicity!

Before we left, there was one last thing hat had to be done. Mike went up to the cafe, slapped down a couple thousand yen (~$25), and ordered a little bit of everything: some ice cream, some snacks, some candy, some drinks, a Japanese horn-of-mysterious-plenty intentionally set up as a shocking surprise for the next lucky customer. (After his order, Mike received single iced coffee.)

As we walked away from the cafe, with just the right amount of delay, we heard an extremely excited “arigato goazimasu!! thank you so much!!” yelled in our direction, from an ecstatic mom and her equally excited young son. They truly appreciated the surprise. It was so worth it."

So - apply this crazy Japanese 'we're all linked together' thinking to your business planning cycle.

It's most likely you're currently eating what the last person who prepared a strategy for your group ordered. You're probably now engaged in ordering the plan that responds to the GFC/ iPad/ exchange rate crisis/ __________ (insert your option here), which if the process of corporate job promotion (if it works, you're heading up the chain!) and general job churn applies, someone else will get to eat.

Should we be more cogniscent of that when we make a plan? Do you make your order/strategy a little more conservative, knowing clearly that everyone is the next person in the queue at some stage? Do you make it more flexible? More generous? More frugal - are all orders suddenly the minimum amount (ie effort/risk) people can spend? Does it change the way you feel about that plan? Are we grateful to those who precede us who ordered generously?

Just the sort of things we like to mull over at R+R. The misanthropes we poll on this subject conclude that human beings will quickly descend to the lowest common denominator, unable to control their fear of being short-changed - thus investing the absolute minimum.

What say you?

*Read Cabel Sasser's full post here.