Samsung Founder Lee Byung-chul and Metaphysical Management
The story of Korean metaphysical management and how Samsung founder Lee Byung-chul used physiognomy, feng shui, and saju in business.
# Samsung Founder Lee Byung-chul and Metaphysical Management
### How physiognomy, feng shui, and saju became part of Korea’s business culture
For decades, Korea’s business world has had a tradition of consulting Eastern practices such as **physiognomy, feng shui, and saju** as additional perspectives when making important business decisions.
One of the most frequently mentioned figures in this context is **Lee Byung-chul**, the founder of Samsung.
Lee Byung-chul is known to have taken an interest not only in a person’s professional abilities, but also in their character and disposition through **physiognomy**. When selecting locations for offices and factories, **feng shui** was also considered. Saju and traditional concepts of personal fortune were sometimes used as another way of looking at people, timing, and business decisions.
Over time, similar practices spread among other Korean business leaders, eventually becoming part of what can be described as **metaphysical management**.
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## Three Dimensions of Metaphysical Management
### 1. Physiognomy — Understanding People
For a business leader, one of the most important decisions is **whom to select and whom to entrust with a key position**.
In the past, some Korean companies consulted physiognomists when selecting executives or employees.
This was not necessarily intended to replace professional evaluation. Rather, it was another attempt to understand a person's **character, temperament, and natural tendencies**.
In other words, the person was considered not only through their education, experience, and professional abilities, but also as a whole individual.
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### 2. Feng Shui — Understanding Space
Location matters greatly in business.
Where should an office or factory be built?
Where should a store be opened?
Which location is most favorable for business development?
Modern businesses answer these questions through market research, customer traffic, logistics, real-estate costs, and many other factors.
Traditional feng shui approaches the same question from another perspective — considering **geographical surroundings, terrain, and the flow of energy within a place**.
For this reason, some business leaders have considered not only economic and practical conditions when choosing a location, but also traditional ideas about whether a place is favorable.
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### 3. Financial Fortune — People, Money, and Timing
Business is not only about money and people.
**Timing** can be equally important.
Who should be placed in a key position?
Which project should receive investment?
When is the right time to launch a new business?
When should the company expand?
In the traditional practice of saju, such questions may be examined through a person's characteristics, financial tendencies, and the changing cycles of their life.
This gives rise to the idea of **financial-fortune management** — using an analysis of fortune as an additional perspective when making important business decisions.
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## Is Metaphysical Management Simply Superstition?
This is where an important distinction needs to be made.
**Metaphysical management does not mean handing over business decisions to a fortune teller or metaphysical practitioner.**
A business leader still studies reports, statistics, market conditions, financial indicators, expert opinions, and potential risks.
Yet in real business, there are rarely situations in which all the available information points clearly in one direction.
Every decision has advantages and disadvantages.
Even the most sophisticated analysis cannot guarantee an outcome.
At a certain point, the leader has to make the final decision personally.
This is where **intuition shaped by years of experience** comes into play.
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## Not the Basis of a Decision, but a Support for Intuition
Over years of experience, an accomplished business leader accumulates thousands of observations, decisions, mistakes, and successes.
This accumulated experience can be thought of as a kind of **personal database**.
Traditional systems of Eastern thought were also developed over generations through observations of relationships between people, timing, circumstances, and events.
Therefore, someone who uses these systems in business does not necessarily ask:
**“What should I do?”**
Instead, the question may be:
**“Does my own judgment align with what this traditional system suggests about the situation?”**
From this perspective, saju, physiognomy, and feng shui do not replace business analysis.
They provide **an additional perspective that can help a decision-maker examine their intuition and gain greater confidence before making a final decision.**
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## Why Does Metaphysical Management Still Matter Today?
Modern business increasingly relies on data, statistics, artificial intelligence, and quantitative analysis.
Yet human decision-making cannot be reduced entirely to numbers.
At the highest level of management, leaders continue to face three fundamental questions:
**Whom should I choose?
Where should I act?
And when should I act?**
From this perspective, the three traditions can be understood as:
**Physiognomy — a way of looking at people.**
**Feng shui — a way of looking at space.**
**Saju — a way of looking at people and the flow of time.**
The question of metaphysical management, therefore, does not necessarily have to be reduced to **“Do you believe in it or not?”**
Perhaps the more interesting question is:
**What traditional knowledge can a person use as an additional framework when making important decisions?**
This may help explain why these practices have not completely disappeared from Korean business culture, even in an age dominated by science, technology, and data.
**Metaphysics does not make the decision for you.**
**It can offer another perspective on the decision you are about to make.**