Corporate cogwebs

There's some interesting stuff in neuroscience about the cognitive networks that form in our heads that save us from thinking! These cogwebs are created by canalised patterns within the brain, where ideas proven by experience provide an easy heuristic for dealing with most of the world around us - we recognise part of the pattern, and the cogweb fills in the rest. This saves us time and effort. (For more details, I recommend Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control by Kathleen Taylor.)

But if the event does not fit the pattern, the cogweb can be a problem. A weak and uncertain network is relatively easy to amend; a fixed and proven cogweb can be so much a part of the way we think that we will change our experience of reality to maintain it. (Heidegger had an interesting essay on What Calls For Thinking?, where he postulated that most thought is routine identification of routines and we rarely choose or are compelled to look directly at the world and think things through for ourselves.)

As with individuals, so with organisations. Many corporate cultures have cogwebs that describe how things work. Even when evidence mounts up that these patterns are not accurate or complete, people will sift the evidence to maintain consistency with the corporate cogweb.

It seems to me that the corporate environment is an ideal breeding ground for such concrete cogwebs: every organisation requires good practices to ensure consistency and new arrivals learn their jobs by learning the rituals of perception and response ... but when that perception is no longer appropriate, are there the mechanisms and motivations to correct it? There are many people within organisations whose identity is wrapped up in the practices and perceptions of their job and who enjoy obeying orders as it takes away their need to evaluate the world, with all the effort and doubt involved.

There has to be effective feedback mechanisms within an organisation in order to create effective cogwebs and then test their veracity. An organisation needs to manage its patterns of thought and be prepared to change. In fact, changing thoughts should be a constant agenda item and managers should be charged with identifying shortfalls in current thinking.