May 20, 2004

Consistency:Hobgoblin ratio

Fouroboros continues to write great stuff, and it's hard to keep up with him sometimes. Here's a snippet of one of his recent posts

Education author Eric Jensen, in Arts with the Brain in Mind reveals that "America is a feeling-phobic society." This goes in spades for subgroups filled with "Professional Adults" called corporations. Of course, the feelings are still there and very active. They're just non-sanctioned, unofficial "elephants" taking up space and sapping oxygen. And this reveals a paradox for most businesses interested in moving product: many have no firm idea what moves people. Nor do they have processes to share this knowledge. That's hardly surprising. Most organizations are configured to hard facts, heavy analysis, and predictable results. Bureaucracies define themselves by their aim for consistency. What is surprising is that that bland paste of "consistency" equates to figurative "death" to our R-complexes. If there is no challenge "I am dead and useless" goes the brain imprint. And people shut down. Or they move on. Or they fight.
I would relate this to the Richard Farson quote in my previous post, and to that quote from Emerson - "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds". Emerson was being a bit harsh, but he had a point.

Posted by Johnnie Moore at 14:53 in Branding
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