Openai/6932ecc5-e634-8011-b64a-a4afcb30497a

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User: "For the past 4 years I have focused much of my time on "Future of Work" issues confronting both knowledge workers, org…

"For the past 4 years I have focused much of my time on "Future of Work" issues confronting both knowledge workers, organizational leaders and the broader workplace industry. This morning, I realized almost all of my connections with subject matter experts in FOW issues are from North America, Europe, India and Australia. None from South America, Africa or east Asia. In a Euro-centric, US-dominated empirical economy and power structure, this makes complete sense. However, it seems likely that I am missing wonderful perspectives such as the African concept of Ubuntu. I cannot help but wonder what Feng Shui has to say about how and where we work and organize ourselves. I'm guessing there are many wonderful concepts from these areas that would enrich both our FOW dialog as well as inform our search for solutions. If I asked you kindly (please!) to discuss with me a dozen such potential connections from east Asia - Africa - South America to our FOW challenges, what would they be?"

Assistant: You’re exactly right that you’re missing a huge layer of insight—and not just “color” or metaphor, but operating system…

You’re exactly right that you’re missing a huge layer of insight—and not just “color” or metaphor, but operating systems for how work, community, and space fit together.

Below are 12 concepts from Africa, East Asia, and South America that I’d put into a shared “Future of Work” sandbox with you. For each, I’ll give:

• Origin & core idea
• How it could reframe work, leadership, and the workplace (built environment)

AFRICA

1. Ubuntu – “I am because we are” (Southern Africa)

Core idea A person’s identity and wellbeing are formed through relationships with others. Personhood is fundamentally relational, not individual.

FOW connections

• Performance & metrics – Shift from “star performer” to relational performance: who builds capability, reduces friction, mentors, and strengthens trust networks.
• Org design – Teams measured not just by outputs but by the quality of interdependence: psychological safety, mutual accountability, shared learning.
• Workplace design – Layouts that treat collaboration spaces as civic infrastructure (places to care for each other and the work), not just amenities: visible commons, shared rituals, social thresholds rather than isolated “me + my laptop” islands. This aligns with the idea that social comfort, wayfinding, and restoration are universal human needs across building types.

2. Harambee – “All pull together” (Kenya)

Core idea Community mobilizes around a shared purpose—everyone contributes what they can to a common goal (fund-raising, building, solving a problem).

FOW connections

• Change management – Instead of top-down change rollouts, treat major transformations (new HQ, new hybrid model, new tools) as Harambee events, where people actively co-create the new system.
• Work models – Project structures that normalize short, intense, cross-functional “pull together” sprints, with visible start/finish, communal celebration, and clear impact.
• Spatial expression – Highly adaptable “rally spaces” where teams can assemble, post goals, track visible progress, and then disband—like digital war rooms made physical.

3. Sankofa – “Go back and fetch it” (Ghana / Akan)

Core idea Progress requires returning to the past to retrieve what is valuable and unfinished—memory as an active resource, not nostalgia.

FOW connections

• Learning & AI – Instead of treating knowledge as disposable project dust, build “Sankofa loops”: formal rhythms where teams revisit old decisions/data to inform new cycles, especially as AI systems amplify historical bias.
• Governance – Institutionalize retrospective spaces (physical and temporal) where past experiments are unpacked and fed into strategy—retros as civic ritual, not just agile ceremony.
• Workplace typologies – “Archives of practice” inside offices: walls, digital canvases, or galleries that show the history of how the organization learns, not just brand slogans.

4. Indaba / Palaver Tree – Consensus under the tree (Southern & West Africa)

Core idea Community gathers—often literally under a tree—to talk, listen, and reach consensus. The process is slow, dialogic, and inclusive.

FOW connections

• Decision-making – Hybrid models that combine fast, small-team decisions with periodic, slow, whole-system “indaba” sessions for big questions: purpose, ethics, AI use, major workplace changes.
• Leadership – Leaders as facilitators of shared understanding, not just deciders. A skillset: holding open, multi-voiced spaces until clarity emerges.
• Spatial design – Intentional “indaba zones”: circular seating, eye-level arrangements, no head-of-table; rooms optimised for listening and layered voices, not presentations.

EAST ASIA

5. Feng Shui (風水) – Harmony of flows (China)

Core idea Human flourishing depends on the alignment of people, objects, and environment with natural and energetic flows (qi). Orientation, boundaries, thresholds, and movement patterns matter.

FOW connections

• Cognitive performance – Map “good flow” to actual behavioral data: desire lines, noise patterns, decision bottlenecks. Feng Shui becomes a metaphorical bridge to sensor-informed workplace tuning.
• Hybrid work – Thinking about flows across home, third places, and office as a single energy system: what drains people, what restores them, and how spatial transitions affect that.
• Design practice – Treat circulation, sightlines, and adjacency not just as efficiency problems but as energetic questions: where does attention pool? Where does stress accumulate? That’s consistent with universal needs around wayfinding, restoration, and intuitive spatial organization.

6. Ba (場) – Shared context for knowledge creation (Japan, Nonaka)

Core idea Ba is the living “place” (physical, virtual, mental) where people share context, emotions, and meaning; it’s where knowledge is actually created, not just stored.

FOW connections

• Hybrid collaboration – Instead of asking “office vs remote?”, ask: Where is our Ba for this work? Some Ba will be physical (strategy offsites), some virtual (persistent digital rooms), some social (communities-of-practice).
• Productivity tooling – Redesign digital workplaces (Slack/Teams/Notion) as intentional Ba, with clear norms, rituals, and boundaries—rather than endless notification streams.
• Physical workplace – Fewer generic “meeting rooms”; more purpose-specific Ba: spaces explicitly designed for sensemaking, conflict resolution, experimentation, or mentoring.

7. Ikigai (生き甲斐) – Reason for being (Japan)

Core idea A life is well-lived when what you love, what you’re good at, what the world needs, and what you can be paid for intersect.

FOW connections

• Work design – Move from job descriptions to ikigai portfolios: each person having a mix of tasks that serve both organizational value and personal meaning.
• Talent strategy – In an AI-heavy future, humans migrate toward work that is meaning-dense (sensemaking, care, creativity). Ikigai gives a language for building those pathways instead of just “up or out”.
• Workplace environment – Spaces that support craft and mastery (quiet studios, maker labs, practice rooms) alongside generic collaboration, signaling that deep skill is as valued as coordination.

8. Wa (和) & Guanxi (关系) – Harmony and relational networks (Japan / China)

I’ll pair these carefully; both are often misused, but they point to important tensions.

Wa (Japan) – Harmony

• Value placed on group cohesion, reduced open conflict, subtle coordination.
• FOW application: design conflict-processing mechanisms so harmony doesn’t mean avoidance—e.g., structured conflict labs, anonymous escalation channels, and clear “how we disagree” rituals.

Guanxi (China) – Relationship networks

• Trust and obligation built over time in dense, reciprocal networks.
• FOW application: recognize that in global orgs, informal networks move more value than org charts. Map and support them: relationship-building programs, cross-border fellowships, rotational placements, and spaces tuned for hosting and hospitality, not just internal use.

SOUTH AMERICA

9. Buen Vivir / Sumak Kawsay – Living well together (Andean, especially Ecuador/Bolivia)

Core idea “Good living” is not individual wealth accumulation but harmonious life within community and nature; it rejects unlimited growth as the only metric.

FOW connections

• KPIs for work – Move from pure productivity to a portfolio of wellbeing metrics: ecological footprint of workplaces, community impact, repair time, generativity of work (does it leave things better?).
• Corporate role in cities – Offices as good neighbors: shared amenities with surrounding community, co-programmed spaces for local groups, regeneration of urban fabric instead of gated corporate islands.
• Sustainability – Net-zero offices not as compliance, but as expression of Buen Vivir: you cannot claim to be a great place to work while eroding the environmental conditions your workers need to live.

10. Minga – Collective work for the common good (Andes)

Core idea Community members volunteer labor to build or repair something for shared benefit—roads, irrigation, houses—often with food, music, and ritual.

FOW connections

• Employee participation – Treat big workplace or process changes as minga moments: people help design, test, and implement, rather than having new systems dropped on them.
• Culture-building – Periodic “build days” where staff step out of normal roles to improve the shared environment: reorganize a floor, replant an outdoor area, co-create new collaboration zones.
• Ownership – When people literally help build the workplace, both physically and procedurally, they’re more likely to care for it and evolve it.

11. Mutirão – Collective mutual-help work (Brazil)

Core idea Neighbors come together to build or fix homes and infrastructure, usually without monetary exchange—similar to minga but deeply embedded in Brazilian urban and rural life.

FOW connections

• Mutual aid inside organizations – Go beyond formal HR benefits to peer-led support structures: skill-sharing, care networks, internal time banks where people can “bank” extra effort to receive help later.
• Space as commons – Treat parts of the workplace as co-governed commons (kitchens, terraces, project labs) where teams maintain, modify, and program the space, instead of everything being centrally controlled by corporate RE/FMs.
• Onboarding & inclusion – Use mutirão-style activities for new teams or new hires: building something together as a fast track to belonging, not just passive orientation sessions.

12. Horizontalidad – Horizontalism & assemblies (Argentina, broader Latin America)

Core idea After Argentina’s 2001 crisis, many worker collectives and neighborhood assemblies adopted non-hierarchical decision-making: rotation of roles, open assemblies, and consensus-seeking processes.

FOW connections

• Org structure – Elements of self-management (distributed authority, clear domains, transparent information) as an antidote to brittle hierarchies in fast-changing environments.
• Decision spaces – Regular open assemblies (in-person and virtual) where anyone can raise issues or propose changes—especially about working conditions, equity, or the use of AI.
• Workplace typology – Less emphasis on huge executive floors and more on mixed, shared “neighbourhoods” where leaders are spatially embedded with teams; symbolic and practical erosion of classed space.

How this could reshape your Future of Work lens

A few meta-shifts that these concepts collectively push toward:

1. From individual optimization → relational and communal performance Success is measured in quality of relationships, shared resilience, and collective learning, not just output per head.
2. From abstract “culture” → spatialized, ritualized practices These philosophies are not just ideas—they are practices embodied in places, times, and rituals. That’s where workplace design, planning, and policy can carry real weight.
3. From growth-only → regeneration & “living well” Buen Vivir, Ubuntu, and others ask: For whom is this future of work “better,” and at what ecological cost?
4. From universal Western playbook → pluriversal futures of work Instead of searching for the global model, we treat the workplace as a negotiated space between different cosmologies—North American productivity logic, Andean Buen Vivir, African Ubuntu, East Asian harmony, etc.

If you’d like, next step could be: pick 2–3 of these and we can prototype what they’d look like as concrete interventions in a real project—policies, governance, and spatial features—rather than just philosophical lenses.