How do you think about your business? It matters more than you may think.

Human Cognitive processes include a large bag of tricks and shortcuts to help us through our lives. We develop habits, form concepts (among which are stereotypes), and use figurative language like metaphors that allow us to learn about the world we interact with in ways that we can better understand.

Merriam-Webster defines as metaphor, at least partly, as “a figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them (as in drowning in money)”

Over the last century the metaphors that emerged and come to dominate in the business lexicon revolve around the key activity within the walls of most companies, especially from 1900–1950, that of building physical things. Naturally then, companies were “built” block by block into “well-oiled machines”. Employees were among the “Cogs” in the machine.

Companies now face a crisis as our metaphors, which are efficient carriers of norms of organization and behavior, have grown stale. This change can perhaps be seen most robustly in the 3-decade migration of organizational value from tangible assets to intellectual capital.

In the middle of the twentieth century around 80% of the market capitalization of companies was something that could be looked at, carried, and perhaps put into a box. Today the ratio has inverted completely, with only 20% of market value in the things we can touch, and 80% of the value found in patents, processes. and heads and actions of people.

For today’s most successful companies this is obvious. Cheap labor is used by everyone, yet Apple combined it with High Street design to become the most valuable company in the world. That is, until they were passed by a company that is fueled entirely by the idea of search advertising.

Companies that are fast and nimble are not machines or buildings, or any other rigid structure overly-sensitive to external changes. For this adaptability we look to the environment around us, filled with groups of organisms surviving through constant changes in structure and capabilities.

With this recognition, we need to develop new metaphors to help us understand and react to the world as it is now. Like models in general, our metaphors are and will be flawed, but we look to current fields such as Neuroscience, Genetics, Behavioral Economics, Cognitive Psychology and Behavioral Economics to help us create ones that are helpful.

The shift of thought and culture in organizations from industrial machines to an organic system is at an early stage, and at Affective Computing, we remained humbled by the things we don’t yet understand.

We built the Thrive Learning System as an entry point for the journey (traveling metaphor alert) from last century’s metaphors to those more appropriate for today, noting that all trips start with a first step.

We work with clients to make this first step easy, and we provide constant feedback that builds confidence and results in profound understandings of the way that groups and individuals can work and thrive together, and the reasons why they may not.

If you would like to know more on how the Thrive Learning System can create an easy to access onramp to today’s economy check us out at www.gothrive.io or drop me a line at jstafura@gothrive.io.