The I Ching at Work

The I Ching at Work: 64 Dynamic Decisions from Grassroots to Leadership

In the modern workplace, success is not simply a matter of working harder or climbing a ladder. It depends on how well you read changing relationships, roles, timing, and power. The I Ching at Work translates the ancient language of the I Ching into a practical framework for everyday decisions—from managing up and navigating departmental boundaries to building balanced teams, planning a career move, handling conflict, and starting a new venture.

Using the eight trigrams as workplace archetypes, Fleming Chuang shows how different supervisors, departments, colleagues, and leaders tend to communicate, decide, resist change, or pursue results. You will learn how to identify a supervisor’s dominant pattern, adjust your message without resorting to flattery, create bridges between functions, and diagnose what a team has too much of—or lacks. The six-line model helps you recognize your current career position, while the cycles of After Completion and Before Completion offer a way to prepare for promotion, transition, or renewal.

The book also applies the hexagrams Song, Bo, Kui, Dun, Ge, and Ding to workplace conflict, marginalization, career change, and entrepreneurship. Each chapter combines interpretation with concrete strategies, examples, checklists, and exercises you can use immediately.

Whether you are an early-career professional, a manager, an executive, or an aspiring entrepreneur, The I Ching at Work invites you to replace reflexive struggle with observation, timing, and deliberate adjustment. The goal is not to find the strongest configuration, but to become the person who can recognize what the situation requires—and act when the time is right.