This week’s NetWorks Sports’ Recommended Book is Ubuntu! by Stephen Lundin and Bob Nelson.

For those who have read Stephen Lundin’s morale boosting book Fish! or learned how to motivate & reward your employees after reading Bob Nelson’s 1001 Ways to Reward Employees are in for a doubly powerful treat when you read Ubuntu! a book based on an African philosophy “Ubuntu” about partnership, teamwork, and collaboration.

Ubuntu, also known as a GNU/Linux based computer operating system, is defined on Wikipedia as African ethic or humanist philosophy focusing on peoples allegiances and relations with each other.  Ubuntu is seen as a classical African philosophy or worldview.  The word has its origin in the Bantu language of southern Africa.

Similar to Patrick Lenchioni’s books, Ubuntu follows the fictional story of a manager, John Peterson, who like many of individuals today find themselves in a rut both personally & professionally.  In particular, Peterson finds his work environment to be one that is extremely inefficient due to the lack of connectedness between co-workers.  His eyes are virtually opened one night when a co-worker, of African decent, stays behind to assist Peterson.

As with Lenchioni’s books this is a pretty easy read where the reader may discover the intent of the message well before the book concludes.  The premise provides readers with some very simple principles that should be commonsense but may be lost on many of us in today’s corporate culture.

The book can prove to be quite usually when trying to create a more collaborative & interactive work environment in your workplace.  If you are looking to find a simple approach to help change the culture at your office, Ubuntu is certainly a book and a philosophy that you should consider.

To sum up the concept, we can reference Desmond Tutu’s definition from the book “No Future Without Forgiveness.”

“A person with Ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.” ~ Archbishop Desmond Tutu

If you are open to a new approach steeped in the simplicity found in African cultures, Ubuntu is worth a read!

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