Wabi‑Sabi and the Pursuit of Perfection: Lessons from a Michelin‑Starred Japanese Chef

When I sat down with Chef Masaki Saito, one thing became clear almost immediately. Excellence doesn’t announce itself. It whispers.

He doesn’t perform. He doesn’t posture. He doesn’t chase applause. Instead, he obsesses quietly and relentlessly over things most of us never notice. The longer I listened, the more I realized this conversation wasn’t just about sushi, but performance at the absolute edge of what’s possible.

Chef Saito has achieved what very few people on the planet have: two Michelin stars in New York and two in Toronto. He is also the only chef in Toronto to receive two stars in the city’s inaugural Michelin Guide. Yet what struck me most wasn’t the accolades, but the subtraction, the precision, the invisible details, and the protected focus.

Doing less… but with more intention.

One of the first things that emerged was the idea of doing more with less, but not in the lazy, minimalist way people often mean. Chef Saito explains, “I decide how to serve an ingredient… when it’s in good condition, I try to keep things as simple as possible.” In Japanese culture, they say Taru o shiru, which means “to know what is enough.” That resonated. Simplicity here isn’t absence; it’s discipline. It’s knowing when not to interfere.

He talked about resisting the urge to overhandle fish, explaining, “I do not like to touch fish too much.” That’s not just culinary technique; it’s a philosophy. Don’t add noise where clarity already exists.

He also adjusts for the North American palate, experiments through trial and error, and knows “the perfect amount of salt or sauce depends on the condition of the fish.” This isn’t ideology. Its judgment earned through repetition.

Simplicity is a powerful driver of business performance. According to Entrepreneur Magazine, keeping things simple increases efficiency, reduces costs and errors, sharpens employee focus, and strengthens customer loyalty, so much so that customers are often willing to pay more for simpler experiences.

Once you learn to subtract without losing finish, the next question is what standards you use to decide what’s allowed back in.

Precision and creativity aren’t opposites.

There’s a myth that creativity suffers under high standards. Chef Saito dismantled that idea. He told me, “I will not serve a customer until I am 100% sure the food tastes exceptional.” Creativity, in his world, is allowed and encouraged, but only after it clears a very high bar.

What I heard was a perfectionist who understands ambidexterity: running the core while building the future. He tests constantly, but always in private first. Only when confidence is absolute does something make it to the table.

This mirrors business research referenced in Medium on organizational ambidexterity, whereby stable execution enables innovation rather than competing with it. The best performers don’t blur the line. They protect it.

And when the bar is that high, excellence stops being a slogan and becomes something you can feel in the smallest, most human moments.

The invisible details that define excellence.

This might have been the most powerful part of our chat. Chef Saito spoke about wabi-sabi, which he explains as “the Japanese art of finding beauty in imperfection and transience.”

He notices everything. For example, whether a guest is left-handed, wants to take photos, or is unsure how to eat sushi. He adjusts in real time. He even checks the signature on the back of every plate and aligns it properly out of respect for the craftsman: “customers may not understand my obsession, but that is what I care about a lot.”

Here’s what I think most organizations miss: customers feel craftsmanship through signals, not statements. Research cited from Business.com reinforces that attention to the finishing touches quietly builds trust, reputation, and differentiation. You don’t get credit for it. You just get results.

But none of that precision or attentiveness to excellence is sustainable unless the environment protects the one resource it all depends on: focus.

Focus is protected, not assumed.

The Japanese saying Isogaba maware means “If you’re in a hurry, take the long way around.” Chef Saito paused before answering and said, “It is important not to work too much, so that I can fully focus and remain calm and deliberate during service.” That flies in the face of the romanticized grind culture we often associate with the world of food.

Instead, he focuses on incremental improvement, explaining “0.1 millimeters each time drives excellence.” That line might be the quiet thesis of the entire conversation.

Research from Swiss German University suggests today’s environment is engineered for constant distraction, shrinking average screen-based attention spans to just 47 seconds (down from 2.5 minutes in 2004). The average person checks their phone more than 200 times a day, making sustained focus increasingly difficult.

Business takeaways I couldn’t ignore.

Listening to this, I kept translating it back to business. Here are the practical lessons that hit home for me:

• Quality is felt in the unseen. Customers experience your standards through micro-signals, not slogans.

• Don’t add until you’ve mastered subtraction. Complexity should earn its place.

• Creativity needs protection, not chaos. Experiment privately. Deliver publicly.

• Precision scales better than intensity. Small, repeatable improvements outperform heroic effort.

• Focus is a leadership decision. If you don’t design for it, you won’t get it.

• Standards must be shared, not assumed. Gaps between expectations create friction and rework.

These aren’t theories. They’re operational truths drawn straight from someone performing at the very top of his field.

The thread that ties it all together.

Toward the end, he said something that brought everything full circle: “When it comes to technique, there’s no such thing as perfection. Everyone must keep refining what they do for the rest of their life.”

That’s the real mystery of elite performance. It’s not the stars. It’s not the recognition. It’s the discipline of subtraction, knowing what to cut out, what to protect, and what to leave untouched. It’s the willingness to stay a beginner in mindset while operating as a master in execution.

What I walked away with is this: excellence isn’t loud. It doesn’t rush. It doesn’t try to impress. It shows up in precision, in the invisible details, and in the relentless protection of focus.

Dr. Lance Mortlock is the author of Outside In, Inside Out – Unleashing the Power of Business Strategy in Times of Market Uncertainty, EY Canada Managing Partner, Industrials & Energy, Strategist & Adjunct Associate Professor.