The Point of Pointing and Calling: A Personal Rediscovery

A few years back, my business partner at Gemba Academy wrote about a Japanese safety practice called shisha kanko—the act of pointing and calling. At the time, I found it intellectually fascinating. The research was compelling: workers who practiced pointing and calling made only 0.38 mistakes per 100 actions, compared to 2.38 errors for those who didn't. An 85% reduction in human error just from pointing at something and saying it out loud? That's remarkable.

But intellectual appreciation and practical application are two very different things. It wasn't until recently, as I've settled into my 60s, that I've truly discovered the everyday power of this deceptively simple practice.

My awakening came at a gas station.

For years I drove a diesel SUV. Then I replaced it with a gas-powered model. Simple enough, right? Except that every single time I pull into a gas station, my brain still wants to reach for the green diesel handle. Muscle memory is powerful, and mistakes at the pump are both expensive and embarrassing—not to mention potentially damaging to the engine.

So I started using shisha kanko. Standing at the pump, I point at the black handle and say out loud: "Regular unleaded." Sometimes I point at the pump display to verify. It feels a bit silly at first, especially if someone's at the next pump. But you know what? I haven't put diesel in my gas tank. Not once.

The practice works because it forces a moment of deliberate attention. As the original research showed, pointing narrows your field of view to within 5 degrees of your fingertip. You're not just glancing—you're actually seeing. And speaking activates additional neural pathways: your jaw, your tongue, your vocal cords. Multiple parts of your brain engage with the task instead of running on autopilot.

Once I started paying attention, I realized how often my aging brain tries to take shortcuts that it really shouldn't.

Take crossing streets. I've always looked both ways—that's basic pedestrian survival. But lately I've caught myself looking without really seeing, my mind already focused on where I'm going rather than on what's coming. Now I point and call it out: "Left clear. Right clear. Left again clear." Yes, I look left twice now. Because cars are fast and I'm not getting any younger, and that extra second of deliberate attention might literally save my life.

The same principle applies when I'm driving and approaching an intersection. Point to the left: "Clear." Point to the right: "Clear." It seems redundant until you consider how many accidents happen because someone looked but didn't really see. We've all had those moments where a car or pedestrian seems to appear out of nowhere. They didn't appear—we just weren't truly paying attention.

The most consequential application, though, might be with email.

How many times have you hit send on an important message and immediately thought, "Wait, did I mean to send that to...?" I've sent confidential information to the wrong person. I've replied-all when I meant to reply to one. I've attached the wrong file. Each mistake was avoidable. Each happened because I was moving fast, trusting my brain to fill in the gaps correctly.

Now, before I send any important email, I practice my own version of shisha kanko. I point to the "To:" field and read the names out loud. Then I point to each attachment and say its name. "Quarterly report dot PDF. Check." Finally, I point to the subject line and the first few lines of the message to verify I'm sending what I think I'm sending. It takes maybe fifteen seconds. It has saved me from several mistakes that would have been awkward at best, damaging at worst.

The beauty of pointing and calling is its universality. It's not just for train conductors in Japan or factory workers engaging lockout-tagout procedures. It's for anyone whose brain occasionally tries to run on autopilot when it really shouldn't.

My business partner described it as "point and mumble" for everyday tasks like checklists and proofreading. That's exactly right. The formality doesn't matter—you don't need to shout or make exaggerated gestures. The intent is what counts: to break the trance of automaticity and inject a moment of conscious awareness.

What strikes me now is how much this practice aligns with broader concepts of mindfulness. It's a micro-meditation, a tiny island of presence in a sea of distraction and hurry. In Zen practice, there's a concept called "beginner's mind"—approaching each moment with fresh awareness rather than assumption. Shisha kanko is beginner's mind applied to the mundane tasks where mistakes happen most often.

As we age, our processing speed may slow but our overconfidence often doesn't. We've done things thousands of times, so we assume we'll do them correctly. But that's exactly when errors creep in. The diesel pump looks so familiar. The intersection looks clear because we expect it to be clear. The recipient list looks right because we assume we filled it out correctly.

Pointing and calling interrupts those assumptions. It forces verification. It makes the invisible visible and the assumed explicit.

I've also noticed something else: the practice builds trust with yourself. When you point at the gas pump and say "regular unleaded," you're creating a small record of confirmation. Later, if you have that nagging thought—did I put the right fuel in?—you can actually remember doing the check. The physical act and the vocalization create a stronger memory than passive observation ever could.

There's a deeper lesson here about respect for our own limitations. Western culture, especially American culture, often celebrates individualism and self-reliance to the point of denying vulnerability. Admitting you need a systematic way to avoid mistakes can feel like admitting weakness. But it's actually the opposite—it's acknowledging reality and responding intelligently.

The Japanese concept of hansei, or reflection, recognizes that we improve not by pretending we're perfect but by honestly assessing where we fall short and implementing countermeasures. Shisha kanko is a countermeasure against the universal human tendency toward inattention.

So yes, I'm the guy pointing at gas pumps and muttering to himself. I'm the pedestrian who visibly looks both ways twice. I point at my computer screen and read email addresses out loud. My wife laughs at me, but hey—it works. And I'm completely comfortable with it.

Because here's what I've learned in my 60s: looking silly for a few seconds is infinitely better than making a costly mistake. Slowing down just enough to pay attention is faster than dealing with the consequences of not paying attention. And respecting the limitations of human cognition—including my own—is not a weakness but a strength.

If you're still skeptical, I'd encourage you to try it. Pick one regular task where mistakes could be consequential. Maybe it's taking medication, or locking doors, or verifying account numbers before transfers. Point at it. Say it out loud. See if it makes a difference.

My bet is that it will. Not because you're somehow broken or deficient, but because you're human. And humans, it turns out, need all the help we can give ourselves to stay present in a world that constantly pulls our attention everywhere else.

The pointing is simple. The calling is easy. The results, as the research shows and my experience confirms, are profound.