MYTHONAUTICS
The modern workplace can seem like the very pinnacle of human achievement, with its gleaming towers of glass and steel, its hushed temples of productivity where the air hums with the gentle thrum of servers and ambition. For years, I have been a privileged observer in this magnificent theatre of human endeavour, watching bright, capable people attempt to chart a course through its intricate currents. They arrive armed with the very latest navigational aids our business schools can devise: spreadsheets that glitter with the promise of absolute clarity, dashboards that track every conceivable metric with the obsessive precision of a Victorian butterfly collector, and strategic plans drafted with the architectural solemnity of a new cathedral. These are, we are assured, the impeccable instruments of our age, the digital sextants and satellite guidance systems for the corporate soul. And yet, I have watched, time and again, as these splendidly equipped expeditions founder on invisible reefs. I have seen glorious corporate galleons, laden with the treasure of projected earnings, suddenly list and run aground on the unseen sandbars of human temperament, their meticulously calculated trajectories undone by a whisper in a corridor or a glance across a boardroom table. There was always something else going on, a vast and powerful tide flowing just beneath the polished mahogany, a force no flowchart could ever hope to contain.
We speak of ‘company culture’ with a certain knowing gravity, as if it were a bonsai tree we could patiently trim and shape to our liking. The reality, as any honest observer will admit, is that it more closely resembles the Amazonian rainforest: a teeming, chaotic, and breathtakingly complex ecosystem, capable of generating its own weather, sometimes nurturing, sometimes ferocious, and always, always, indifferent to the tidy little labels we try to pin on it. We discuss ‘office politics’ in the conspiratorial tones usually reserved for spycraft, acknowledging its raw power while lacking any real map of its treacherous terrain. We fail to see that these are not modern annoyances but ancient dramas, the courtly intrigues of the Borgias played out with lanyards and laptops, their roots buried deep in the prehistoric soil of human tribalism. We launch ourselves on grand ‘missions’ to conquer new markets, invoking the gung-ho spirit of heroic adventurers setting sail for the New World. But we often forget that a true quest requires more than a rousing slogan; it demands a genuine understanding of the narrative fuel that powers such a journey, and more importantly, how to keep the fire of collective belief burning when the dragons of doubt and delay inevitably rise from the depths to block the way.
Our traditional manuals for management, for all their solid, undeniable virtues, are essentially guidebooks to the world’s well-lit capital cities. They are superb for optimising the traffic flow on existing boulevards, for ensuring the trains run on time, and for maintaining the public parks of procedure and policy. They excel at taming the known. But what of the vast, unmapped wilderness that lies just beyond the city limits? What of the sprawling, often invisible, continents of collective emotion, of unspoken hierarchies, of the deep archetypal patterns that have been shaping human destiny since we first gathered around a fire to tell stories? These are the hidden landscapes of our working lives, the submerged realms where the true fate of our most cherished projects is ultimately decided. Our standard instruments are useless here. To venture into this territory with only a balance sheet for a compass is to invite disaster, albeit a disaster that can be tracked with immaculate precision right up to the final, bewildering moment of impact.
This book, MYTHONAUTICS, was born from the growing awareness that we need new maps for these unseen worlds. It grew from a lifelong affair with the staggering power of myth - not as a collection of quaint fables for children, but as humanity’s great, shared library of psychological wisdom, a profound record of our timeless journeys, our foundational struggles, and our astonishing capacity for reinvention. It also grew from a profound admiration for the practical genius of navigation, the hard-won artistry of the ancient mariners and celestial pilots who knew that to steer a true course, one had to read more than just the map. They had to read the stars, the subtle shift of the wind, the colour of the water, the behaviour of the birds. They knew that the vessel was only half the story; the true art was in understanding the vast, dynamic system in which it sailed.
Mythonautics, then, is not an escape route from the pressures of professional life, but a deep dive into its very heart. It is an invitation to become a ‘Mythonaut’: a skilled and conscious navigator of the powerful currents of meaning and myth that shape our workplaces. By learning to recognise the epic tales being unconsciously enacted in our teams, by spotting the archetypal roles we and our colleagues instinctively adopt - the wily Trickster in IT, the wise old Sage in accounts, the heroic Warrior leading the sales charge - we can begin to lead and collaborate with a thrilling new level of insight and integrity. This is a journey into the fascinating crossroads where ancient story meets the modern spreadsheet, where the wisdom of the ages can be used to illuminate, and perhaps even solve, the most baffling challenges of the twenty-first-century organisation.
This voyage is for the leader who has ever felt that there must be a better way to inspire change, for the manager exhausted by solutions that only ever seem to scratch the surface, and for anyone who has ever stared out across the open-plan office and sensed the presence of a deeper, richer, and far more interesting world humming just beneath the noise. It offers no rigid prescriptions or ten-step formulas for success. Instead, it offers a new way of seeing. It provides the frameworks and the tools to read the symbolic weather, to chart a course through the fog of ambiguity, and to lead with a resonance that inspires not just grudging compliance, but fierce and joyful commitment. It is my deepest hope that when you reach the final page, you will feel more than just informed. You will feel empowered, equipped not merely to manage the world as it is, but to navigate your way toward the world as it could be, with courage, with wisdom, and with a renewed sense of the grand adventure of it all. The old maps are fading. It’s time to chart your course.