additional content meetings in which he brought these covert assumptions to the surface . In effect , he shone a light on the invisible rumination of the firm ’ s culture , relabeling this culture as collective mental habits that people happened to hold at this company , not as aspects of reality . And once he had relabeled them that way , people could reframe their situation , choosing a set of more optimistic mental constructs that would move them further along : However bad this situation is , we can fix it if we don ’ t fight .
This new approach made all the difference . Bailey had tapped into the way people can build and manage their own cognitive habits . The division he oversaw was back to breakeven after nine months and profitable within a year . It was sold as a going concern in the 18th month . This preserved shareholder wealth , and most of the related jobs . Transpacific Industries has had its ups and downs since then , but it continues to operate profitably [ pdf ] under the name of its former acquisition , Cleanaway ; the company won the Turnaround of the Year award in 2016 from the Australasian branch of the Turnaround Management Association ( a global group of professionals in Bailey ’ s field ).
The Nature of Deceptive Messages Many companies have the same cultural issue : a constant flow of inaccurate but persuasive messages that take the enterprise in dispiriting , self-defeating directions . Indeed , when business leaders complain about their culture , they ’ re usually complaining about these corporate cognitive distortions . It ’ s as if people throughout the company are deceiving themselves and their colleagues about the business and its potential . When company leaders complain about their culture , they usually complain about corporate cognitive distortions .
When company leaders complain about their culture , they usually complain about corporate cognitive distortions . It ’ s as if everyone in the company is deceiving themselves and their colleagues .
It ’ s as if everyone in the company is deceiving themselves and their colleagues .
These deceptive organizational messages are unexamined , taken for granted , and strengthened through everyday conversation . When a leader says about a proposed idea , “ We tried that in the past and it didn ’ t work ,” an implicit consensus often follows : Nothing like that will ever work . People treat this message as an unquestionable axiom , assume that others believe it , repeat it up and down the enterprise , and avoid any action that would contradict it . There ’ s generally a pattern of deceptive messages when organizations cover up sexual harassment : That ’ s not the kind of company we are . Therefore , this must be an isolated case . Or , There must be something wrong with the accuser .
Deceptive organizational messages are larger-scale analogs to the deceptive brain messages that most people have experienced as individuals . These are the thousands of thoughts , impulses , urges , and desires embedded in habitual brain activity . They too are often false or inaccurate , and they tend to distract or dissuade people from important goals and intentions , but they seem so natural that they are regarded as real and irresistible . When you experience a recurring rumination of this sort — I always screw up , or , Nobody appreciates me ; or , conversely , I ’ m so special I can get away with anything , or , Everyone else sees things the same way I do — you are experiencing a signal generated by nothing more perceptive than the habitual churn of your brain circuits . The phenomenon of neuroplasticity — the fact that recurring mental activity tends to strengthen the brain circuits related to it — gives these deceptive messages their power . Habitual thoughts and feelings become stronger , and easier to repeat , over time . They also affect the way you pay attention to the world , making you more likely to notice the events and phenomena that reinforce those thoughts . If repeated enough , messages like these become a consistent way of making sense of the world .
By the time we become adults , most of us learn to resist our own deceptive brain messages somewhat . We recognize that we must step outside our comfort zone to learn and achieve new things . But even resistance carries a cost . As Stanford University psychologist James Gross has noted , the act of ignoring or suppressing deceptive brain messages results in a higher level of stress for individuals . For some , this leads to problematic conditions such as obsessive-compulsive disorder and some forms of addiction and depression . And in companies , it leads to unexamined , counter-strategic behavior grounded in assumptions and beliefs that no one particularly likes , but that nobody can seem to discard .
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