The Eight Squares of Business

One of the key purposes of a feng shui audit is to identify the problems in an organisation or business. There are many ways in which a feng shui consultant can do this, and the techniques often depend on the scale of the audit — the bigger the space, the more sophisticated the techniques. There are however, some simple methods that can be used to get a basic idea of what might be affecting your organisation or business, and I’m going to show you the technique in this week’s article. I call this method of self-evaluation the Eight Squares of Business.

This method works best for start-ups or small and medium enterprises. I would not recommend it for large businesses although the idea of feng shui as a tool to diagnose and determine challenges and obstacles within an organisation remains relevant. If you have a basic understanding of feng shui (it is one that is centred around favourable and unfavourable directions), I believe the Eight Squares of Business method will offer you a different perspective on what feng shui can do for your business.

Whenever we evaluate a property during a feng shui consultation, one of the first things we do is to super-impose a nine-square grid on the floor plan of the property. This grid allows the feng shui consultant to determine which areas of the space correspond with the north, south, east, west, northeast, northwest, southwest and southeast directions on the Luo Pan. The centre of the grid is simply known as “The Centre”.

Each sector can relate to a person, a particular skill or ability, or a particular trait within an organisation or department. By tracing the sector that is negatively affected, or imbalanced, the problems of the organisation can be ascertained. Here’s a quick over view of the individuals, items, traits or abilities that each sector relates to in a corporation or department:

North — this sector is governed by the trigram Kan and the element of water. The north’s primary connection is to marketing departments, business intelligence units and the people who run or work within these units. It also relates to the ability to make wise and smart decisions, exporting power of a business, and capacity to reach new markets, product and market reach.

South — this sector is governed by the trigram Li and the element of fire. It impacts on the company’s reputation, status, brand value and goodwill it enjoys.

East — this sector is governed by the trigram Zhen and the element of wood. This sector influences action and execution, operations and implementation. It relates to the do-ers in the organisation, the business development team, or the staff who delivers the products or services that have been sold by the sales team. It also specifically relates to the position of COO of the company.

West — this sector relates to the element of metal but is governed by the trigram Dui. It impacts communications, direction, purpose, mission or goals of an organisation, and the individuals connected to these aspects of the business. Public relations and communications, for example, are governed by the west sector.

Southwest — this sector is governed by the trigram Kun and the element of earth. This sector co-relates with a company’s assets such as physical goods, properties, accumulated earnings, and the ability to achieve growth through the compounding of earnings or by achieving increased profits from the same or limited pool of customers. It also relates to individuals entrusted with the safe-keeping of the company’s documents, finances or trade secrets.

Northeast — this sector is governed by the trigram Gen and the element of earth. This sector relates to the brains-behind-the-scenes, strategists, thinkers and big-picture people, as well as the administrative part of an organisation. It influences the ability of an organisation to engage in strategic action and the level of administrative competence.

Northwest — this sector is governed by the element of metal and the trigram Qian. The latter relates to leadership, CEOs, senior management, decision-making, decisiveness, authority and power in an organisation.

Southeast — this sector is governed by the trigram Xun and the element of Wood. This sector is closely related to the areas of knowledge management, research and development, documentation and data. It also linked to the intellectual property of an organisation.

By looking at each sector and determining if it is a positive or negative sector, you can get a snapshot of which aspect of your business process or department of your organisation is most challenged or having the toughest time.

In next week’s article, I’ll show you how to determine if a particular sector is a positive or negative, and how it specifically affects that aspect or feature of your business or organisation.


Joey Yap is an expert in Chinese astrology services and audits, Classical Feng Shui, BaZi, Mian Xiang and other Chinese metaphysics subjects. He can be reached via Facebook: www.facebook.com/JoeyYapFB


Written by Joey Yap
This article appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, July 26, 2010.