This is the 4th installment in Strange New Work, a special series from What Works that explores how speculative fiction can help us imagine new ways of working.
Social and professional norms aren't natural or innate. They're political. Those in power exert their preferences on those who aren't, and throughout history, have exerted social, cultural, and physical violence to either force subjugated people to assimilate or drive them out of society altogether.
Speculative fiction is rife with tales of imperial conquest and colonization. And it's helpful for identifying the kinds of control and domination that we deal with daily, even though many of us never notice it. Speculative fiction can help us see harm for what it is, recognize the damage done by colonizers, and imagine forms of resistance.
In today's episode, I dive into the harms of imperialism, how supremacy culture forms the basis of professionalism, how Indigenous futurism gives us a way to "imagine otherwise," and what coach and author Charlie Gilkey recommends for creating a culture of belonging at work through team habits.
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What is What Works?
"Work" is broken. We're overcommitted, underutilized, and out of whack. But it doesn't have to be this way. What Works is a podcast about rethinking work, business, and leadership as we navigate the 21st-century economy. When you're an entrepreneur, independent worker, or employee who doesn't want to lose yourself to the whims of late-stage capitalism, this show is for you. Host Tara McMullin covers money, management, culture, media, philosophy, and more to figure out what's working (and what's not) today. Tara offers a distinctly interdisciplinary approach to deep-dive analysis of how we work and how work shapes us.