Koudouryoku (行動力)

Koudouryoku (行動力)

There is a word in Japanese called koudouryoku. I’ve been wracking my brain for a long time trying to find a suitable translation into Chinese or English. Unfortunately, unsuccessful. The approximate meaning is “the ability to get things done.” (Which, by the way, is very much in the spirit of the organization I’m currently working with.)

Koudouryoku, as far as I can tell, is quite prized in Japanese culture. It’s about how much energy and perseverance you have to make things happen; to make ideas materialize. In the popular, lets-do-this-for-fun personality tests, there’s usually a section on how high your koudouryoku is, along with how emotional you are or how creative you are. Even when they analyse the personality of pop stars on TV shows, this category would come up.

I think Tanzania would benefit from an injection of koudouryoku.

All these failed NGO projects, company projects, government projects. Sometimes I wonder if it really is the problem of design or is it the problem of implementation. Of course, most of the time it is both, but if you had more koudouryoku, the goal can be reached, regardless of the obstacles. How does a society get more koudouryoku? How does an individual get more koudouryoku?