The Japanese word hoshin is very popular in corporate circles, where it designates a management method of wizardly reputation. Its meaning is "plan," or "goal," or "aim," according to my friend Hiroshi Kosugi who was born and educated in Japan. Many managers would insist, however, that one should find a unique significance to it, which they invariably fail to present convincingly, other than by describing bromidic processes and procedures. This embellishment of foreign words is not uncommon in our society, which has a propensity to attribute quasi-magic properties to anything borrowed from exotic cultures. It will certainly come as a surprise to many that hoshin has its roots in the nineteenth-century American frontier.

To trace the origin of the word, one has to go back to the times following Townsend Harris's mission to Japan as first US Consul General. Elmer Blivett, Townsend's closest aide and best friend, can legitimately be called the father of hoshin, as we will see. Elmer, a pleasant and clever fellow, was born in a family of German immigrants who had settled on the frontier. The family name had been changed from Blitzweg to Blivett for reasons of orthographic tractability.

As a child, Elmer had seen a string of harsh winters decimate the wild animals on which people relied for food. A flourishing rabbit population had been all but eradicated by exposure, predators, and a ground too hard for digging burrows. To carry around a rabbit foot for good luck had become prohibitively expensive. Even wealthy people had to subscribe to rabbit-foot clubs where they could rent the valuable furry charm for special occasions such as the closing of an important business deal or a marriage engagement. As expected in a free-market society, this situation inspired a shrewd glue-factory owner to spread the idea that a horse shin, although considerably cheaper, was as good as a rabbit foot as far as luck was concerned, and perhaps even better. Of course, he was right. The scheme worked, and the demand for fashionable horse shins soon made the glue-factory owner a millionaire. He retired to Spain, only to build a business on the idea that bull shins were potent good-luck charms, which subsequently earned him millions of pesetas. Unfortunately, by that time he was suffering from gout and could no longer enjoy the wealth that his genius had created. After a horse stepped on his big toe, he developed persistent feelings of hate towards the very animals that had made his fortune. A bitter old man, he retired to a monastery where he peacefully spent the rest of his life carving religious artefacts out of leg bones of large animals.

This little-known historical footnote was the reason why Elmer had a horse shin at hand for all the important meetings called by the Consul, which customarily included Japanese notables. Elmer would place his horse shin on the table in front of him, and every time he would have to think hard to resolve a touchy question, he would stare at the bone to ward off distracting thoughts---and perhaps to bring good luck on himself as well. Townsend Harris and the Japanese lords liked Elmer for his foresightedness, wisdom, and good manners with the ladies. With time, Elmer's horse shin became the symbol of worthy goal, or thoughtful plan, or ambitious design. Later, the phrase itself---ho'shin as the Japanese pronounced it---came to take these meanings.

A few American executives respectful of tradition and historical accuracy use the "horse shin" phrase, and jokingly refer to the hoshin management crowd as "shin heads." But they do that behind closed doors and among trusted friends. They fear that their scoffing at what is now considered a foreign word could be hastily construed as a sign of rebellion against multiculturalism and diversity, perhaps the most dreadful sin imaginable and a sure cause for losing government contracts.

The custom of good-luck horse shin faded away shortly after the turn of the century, possibly because of the rush into the automobile age. In the 1920s, a junkyard owner tried to sell a line of lucky charms made of car suspension parts, only to fail miserably. In the 1960s, at the age of seventy, he joined a hippie commune and started a profitable business selling good-vibes crystals to Canadian tourists in Venice, California. He died a rich man in 1984, after authoring a best-selling treatise on the use of good-vibes crystals in the teaching of science in California high schools.