Golden Repair of Organizations
- nadjaszalay
- Jan 7
- 3 min read
The first time I encountered the art of kintsugi was a few years ago, during an organizational development project. My colleagues and I were searching for a metaphor that could capture the organization’s fragmented culture. What emerged was the image of a broken pot that didn’t need replacing, but repairing.
Kintsugi (金継ぎ) is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer dusted with powdered gold. It became a symbol for what that organization actually needed: a careful process of bringing broken pieces back together, not by hiding the cracks, but by bonding them with precious gold. While working with them, a new substance could take form – one that acknowledged tensions, imperfections, misunderstandings, and fractures as part of the whole. The local leadership teams in a multi-country organization needed to face what had broken, address it openly, and discover new ways of connecting and bonding.
Inspiration from the home of kintsugi
Last summer, while traveling in Japan, I immersed myself more deeply in the approach of kintsugi. It resonated strongly with my attitude toward the world, and the more I read about it, the more it revealed that the concept goes beyond the material dimension and can be applied to our relationships, society, and to organizations as well. It means:
Sustainability – Kintsugi creates something new out of what appears to be useless, it is a possibility of repair instead of disposal.
Storytelling – Every repaired object carries a story: of its origin, its breakage, and the person who chose to invest time and care into repairing it.
Joy – Despite its depth, kintsugi is an enjoyable and accessible craft, offering a tangible and visually satisfying result, even for beginners.
Journey – Presence, silence, patience, and focus are essential and rushing undermines the work and the learning.
Healing – Visible golden veins symbolize how scars and wounds are not defects, but meaningful chapters of a life story.
Kintsugi in Munich
My holiday in Japan was too short to start practicing kintsugi there, so I attended my first kintsugi workshop in Munich. The atmosphere was quiet and inspiring, with all the necessary equipment in our hands. I learned how the glue meets the golden powder and how to make the lines shinier – but it felt as if we remained on the surface.
It was a workshop about technique – while I was longing for a collective, embodied experience of presence and a felt sense of connection. The field was there to connect us, yet we left it unused. We didn’t share our stories, although it was almost tangible in the air that something important was going on among the participants.
golden repair in organizations
Since then I see even more clearly that kintsugi has a lot to do with organizational learning. That workshop reminded me how organizations and teams usually discuss their operational issues and focus solely on finding the right solution. From my practice, I am quite familiar with how different organizational development could become when teams refuse to rush, and choose to experience learning together.
Transformation does not depend only on methodologies, models, or well-proven strategies. Just as with kintsugi, there is no universal recipe – because transformation is contextual. It is shaped by each team’s history, present, and relationships.
Technique refines policies and structures, but presence repairs relationships and connections.
Teams need dedicated time and an experienced orchestrator who helps them slow down, put their masks aside, and remain present with what is actually there.
I call this team coaching. Before mixing the golden glue, teams must be willing to face their own cracks. Only then can they change – without unnecessary pressure.
Only if people are fully present, can they truly connect.
Only if they genuinely connect, can they change.
Only when teams change what and how they are together, can organizations transform.
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