A Bird Leaves Nothing Behind: How Japan’s World Cup Fans Inspire A Better Future

This week, the world turns its attention West as the US, Mexico and Canada host the World Cup. Your feed is likely filled with stories about who has the best talent, what matchups might lead to an upset and ultimately who should win. 

You likely won’t find content on whose fans you should most cheer for. Until now. 

When it comes to sports, there is a lot to love. But there is also plenty we need to improve upon. Take, for example, the stands at any stadium after the final buzzer. 

We all know it—after a game, it can look like a bomb exploded, with peanut shells, beer bottles and whatever else strewn around like a garbage dump. That’s no way to leave the hallowed grounds of competition. 

It’s also no way to leave the place when you know other people have to clean up after you. 

But those watching the World Cup this year may see an example of just how to fix the issue. 

Back in 1998, during Japan’s first appearance in the competition, fans of the national team actually swept up the stadiums and got rid of refuse after each match in France. Since then, the custom has continued all the way through 2022 in Qatar. (In 2018, Japanese players cleaned their own dressing room in Russia, leaving behind only a thank-you note.)

All this is slated to continue this year. 

Why? Well, from an early age, the Japanese are taught one very simple idea: Tatsu tori ato wo nigosazu, which translates to, “A bird leaves nothing behind.”

The lesson is absorbed by the Japanese so well that their sports fans and athletes abide by it even during the tensest of global competitions. 

But amazingly, this behavior isn’t specific to the Asian nation. 

College football fans will remember back to 2018 when Army played Oklahoma. It was a close game with the Sooners taking it 28-21. But in the end, the score wasn’t the only story. 

After the game, a photo of the Army locker room went viral on social media. The Army players made it look spotless. The janitors ostensibly had the night off. 

Perhaps Army players took a signal from that iconic Rugby team from New Zealand, The All Blacks. The country’s national team is a model of talent, hard work and leadership. You can read about it in my friend James Kerr’s excellent book, Legacy: What The All Blacks Can Teach Us About The Business Of Life. 

In it, Kerr highlights 15 lessons of leadership. One includes cleanliness and consideration. Indeed, no matter what, win or lose, when The All Blacks get back to their locker room, the captains of the team all grab brooms to begin the process of what they call “sweeping the shed,” or cleaning up after themselves. 

Of course, when the captains clean, the rest of the team follows. (Think about that idea for a minute.) It’s part of the legendary Rugby World Cup-winning team’s culture. 

It’s such a wonderful example and it begs such a powerful question: Are we doing all we can to leave the world a better place than when we found it?

In business, for example, if you’re moving on to a job elsewhere, are you leaving your former colleagues setup for success? Or on a more granular level, when we’re leaving a conference room after a long lunch meeting—what is left on the table or floors?

Is there a mess? Are we expecting someone else to take time out of their day to fix things? Or are we doing our best to leave the place as pristine as possible? 

Trust me, I know I’m not perfect. But as I continue to my career, I’ll be sure to keep in mind the Japanese World Cup team, The All Blacks and Army football. I want to be committed to leaving the world – or even our conference room – better off than when I got here.

I want to be like those Japanese birds, leaving nothing behind. 

Don’t you?