Kamui Whisky K.K.

Rishiri Island sits off the northernmost tip of Hokkaido — remote, elemental, almost unreachable. It has been a traditional fishing community at the edge of Japan for hundreds of years, on the frontier with Russia. It is one of the last places you’d expect a whisky startup.

But since its founding in 2022, Kamui has gained recognition, winning multiple Gold Medals for their unaged whisky, Kamui Genshu, and even winning Best Unaged Whisky at the London Spirits Competition. All from this windswept, mostly snowy, remote island that many in Japan couldn’t exactly place on a map.

Head Distiller Javier Negrete has been building the operation for four years, and under his artistic craftsmanship has racked up an impressive haul of gold medals at international competitions: International Spirits Challenge 2026, International Wine & Spirit Competition 2026, London Spirits Competition 2026 (Unaged Whisky of the Year), and China Wine & Spirits Awards 2026.

Behind the whisky production is a team of about ten people: ages 23 to 65, from different parts of Japan, and from different countries. Making leadership of this team even more difficult is that Javier doesn’t speak Japanese, or French (the second most spoken language on site). Getting a group that is so seemingly different, at least on the surface, to work together wasn’t going to come easily. Maybe as hard as winning all those Gold Medals. But probably harder, as other humans are so often what really frustrate us.

So Javier had to find another way.

Javier (far left) and his team at the Rishiri Distillery.

Before Attuned, Javier had no real way of knowing how his team was doing until some relationship had really broken down, someone’s resentment had been simmering for a long time, and it became really challenging to make things work. He had his past experience, and his gut, but these would throw off weird signals on his managerial instruments, having to travel through the different cultural and linguistic barriers, all on top of a unique, exploratory group ethos among people who had chosen Rishiri as home (only a couple were born there).

Early on, one of his senior distillers shocked him with a moment of warped honesty:

“We will never tell you no, or the truth, but you have to look at our eyes, and in our eyes is the feeling.”

This meant Javier was often the last to know. Tensions between team members would build quietly for weeks, and by the time Javier realized, someone’s internal frustration had usually boiled over.

Rishiri is a small place. A very small place. A place where the original form of human government — gossip — seems to keep the social fabric functioning. When people talk about each other it travels fast. To paraphrase Mark Twain, a rumor can travel halfway around the mountain while the truth is still putting on its shoes. This wore on the team. And on Javier. It had lots of hidden parts, more than Javier could see, but it also gave tiny signs — the small facial muscles that were tight and unhappy.

Javier needed to find a way to get the team members to open up, to have conversations happen that weren’t naturally flowing, at least in the Western sense. He didn’t want to spend every night in the izakaya drinking lots and lots of beer to get the truth out, the traditional Japanese way; he needed to keep his senses honed for making that world-class whisky.

Attuned gave him a new option, one that would help him understand his team members and communicate more closely with them. But it took some convincing to get the team to use it too.

When Javier first introduced Attuned, most of the team didn’t get it. “Intrinsic motivation” was a technical term, one that didn’t get verbalized on the island, even though most people were living it instinctively through the choices that had brought their life here. So Javier stopped explaining it that way.

Instead, he started pulling people aside for coffee and asking about their lives outside work. Never in his office — somewhere more casual. One team member surfs, so Javier asked him what he loves about it. “I love to be sitting on my board on the ocean, feeling the nature. I find inner peace.” Javier would then follow up, asking what could give him that same feeling at work.

Javier also learned to start every conversation about motivation by sharing his own motivation report first. This would break the ice, and from that example and the natural human desire to reciprocate, members would begin to talk about their motivations more freely.

Javier’s Autonomy score is 100%. When his team members saw that, they would often laugh, or, conversely, go quiet for a moment. “Now we understand you a little better.” After that, they would feel more comfortable talking about their own motivation results. It moved from their initial instinct that they were being assessed to a more trusting understanding that Javier was trying to have an honest conversation and really get them, individually.

“By using their personal motivators, they started to get why we are doing this.”

It was slow, and there is still a holdout or two who aren’t wholly convinced. But the bi-weekly Motivation Satisfaction survey response rate has climbed from 86% to a sustained 100% — a one-minute survey that the whole team now answers, every time. Javier uses Attuned’s AI TalkCoach to help him make sense of the responses and frame his action plan. He is no longer just being responsive, with a knee-jerk reaction, or the confirmation-bias-y type of move he’d previously made using the only tool available to him — his own experience.

Attuned’s Motivation Satisfaction trend view. The dashed line is the response rate: it starts at 86%, and from late 2025 holds at 100% almost every cycle. Getting the whole team to answer honestly, every two weeks, was the hard part.

The motivator gap feature in Attuned became Javier’s most-used tool. When something feels off between two people, or between himself and a particular member, it gives them a place to start the conversation. A starting block based in objective truth.

A few weeks ago, a driven young distiller was really struggling to work alongside a colleague who learns slowly and needs regular encouragement. Javier sat with this ambitious young distiller and together they reviewed the motivation gap data between him and his colleague.

His Altruism score was 3%.

The young distiller was shocked. “But I care about my family, about my work.” So Javier read the description of Altruism with him. Attuned describes a low level of Altruism as “putting efficient work performance ahead of workplace atmosphere or mutual support.” The distiller went quiet. He could recognize that in himself. Javier explained further, adding his own observations of how the young distiller works: he moves fast, and when a colleague can’t keep up, he tends to leave them behind rather than slow down.

With the conversation now open, Javier felt he had a chance to take it further. He told the distiller that his ability gave him an advantage over most of the team, and that one day he would likely be a leader, and that would mean he would have to lift up the people around him. “Raise the bar of the team, not drop people from the boat.”

Javier had worked out that framing with TalkCoach beforehand. He went into the conversation fortified not only with a deep understanding of the junior distiller, his colleague, and their dynamics, but also with multiple options on how to frame the discussion positively.

The culture map for Javier’s distillery team. The purple dots are Javier’s motivators. Javier tends to sit at the highest end of motivator needs, whereas most of the team members sit on the opposite side. It was these gaps, more than the language and cultural gaps, that made mutual understanding and connection challenging.

No one had explicitly taught Javier how to manage on Rishiri. He figured it out, step by step, as the team grew. One of the hardest parts for him was figuring out how to deliver difficult feedback without making things worse.

“Attuned and TalkCoach saved me significant time finding the right, ethical keywords. Specifically when I have to give negative or constructive feedback.”

Retention at this remote distillery, where night comes dark and early, has improved. The team members who have stayed and embraced the culture of honest communication are in a better mood. The dynamic has shifted: senior distillers now help the less experienced members instead of moving on without them.

Javier describes the current culture, helped in its creation by Attuned, as the opposite of what you’d see in a traditional Japanese workplace: not top-down management but a speak-up culture, with high psychological safety. These ingredients aren’t in the whisky, not part of the mash bill, but they are key ingredients in why this remote distillery is having sustained success.

“Many of our team understand that I am not only monitoring their work but also mentoring them on the company’s values.” Javier has coached the team to a tipping point where they trust the direction, and now support each other. Attuned has helped make this possible.

“If I didn’t use Attuned, I’d spend weeks and weeks trying to understand what is happening, especially when it’s a conflict between one worker and another.” For managers running multicultural teams, with multiple members — multiple nodes, which exponentially increase potential strained interactions — those weeks quickly add up.

“With Attuned, you have that sense of privacy and freedom to improve as a manager at your own pace.”
— Javier Negrete, Head Distiller, Kamui Whisky K.K.

Kamui is releasing its first aged whisky in November 2026. They expect it to sell out very quickly. If you don’t get a chance to purchase a bottle yourself, visit their dedicated bar in Ginza, where you can taste the whisky and enjoy the views from the 42nd floor. And if you are ever in the mood for an adventure, to be a bit of an explorer yourself, and make the long detour to visit the Rishiri Distillery, take a close look at their culture too, not just the gorgeous color of their whisky.

Want to see how Attuned works for multilingual and multicultural teams? Book a demo here.