It’s one of my favourite concepts.

Imagine you had a beautiful bowl – and it broke. What could you do?

You could sadly decide it’s useless, that’s it, get rid of the bits and try to forget it ever happened.

You could mend it, very carefully, so none of the breaks and cracks show – and hope nobody ever finds out. Shhhhhhh. Nothing to see here.

Or you could follow the Japanese concept of kintsugi – that the bowl still exists, still beautiful, still useful, and can be brought back to life.

Then you mend it – but instead of using invisible glue, you use gold.

So every crack, every break can still be seen – but the story is there.

It cracked, and it broke, and you put it back together again in a way that shows what happened.

It’s stronger, more valuable and more beautiful than it was before.

This post really wasn’t about pots …

Philippa Hammond

Learning, Development and Performance Consultant | Trainer | Facilitator