少数精鋭

しょうすうせいえい
shousuu seiei

Today's yo-ji is a useful one for anyone considering going into any kind of business endeavor in Japan, as it represents, I think, one important concept in organization and philosophy. I was reminded of it last week by Jeff's 知る人ぞ知る post, although the meaning is somewhat removed from that specific phrase. (For another business philosophy phrase, see 鶏口牛後)

During college, I interned in the New York office of a Japanese newspaper, and one of the first things I noticed was that our office was significantly smaller than those of any of our peer publications. As an unpaid intern, I wasn't ever really expected to work all that hard, but it was pretty clear that the paid staff, especially the bureau chief, was working pretty hard almost non-stop. I remember talking to my boss about this at lunch one day, and he told me that the company's philosophy was to have 少数精鋭 rather than a large number of worker drones.

I'm sure our US readers all recognize this...

I don't think it'll be too useful to go over every kanji in this phrase, but I do think that the last two are worthy of our time here. First, we have 精. Rikai-chan will tell you essentially what it means. It's good to know for words like 精力 or 精気, or any of the hundreds of other words that contain it. (Yes, we'll skip that one. Maybe we'll put it up on the Nightly Yoji one day.) 鋭, meaning sharp, is another good one to know, because, as in English, it carries both the physically sharp (like a knife) and mentally sharp (like... me) meanings. Which brings us to our:

Definition:
少数の選りすぐった人々。また、その少数で事に当たること。
Translation:
1. The few, the proud, the mighty
2. The select few

例文：
うちは少数精鋭主義だから、よそより人数少ないけど、実力では誰にも負けない自信がある。
We believe in maintaining a small, select group. So, even though we have less people than our competitors, we're confident that we are second-to-none in terms of ability.

Good luck, and godspeed.