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David White, a cognitive anthropologist with 25 years of corporate experience, shares powerful insights about why organizational transformations fail and how understanding brain science can revolutionize our approach to culture change. His research reveals the complex relationship between our habitual work practices and the neural pathways that form our cultural thinking patterns.
• Culture consists of millions of schemas or tacit knowledge structures that reside in our brains
• Approximately 75% of business transformations fail to achieve their stated objectives
• What we do all day long indelibly shapes how we think - we are what we do
• Industrial companies develop risk-averse mindsets that extend beyond their core products
• The nature of our daily tasks creates "dominant logics" that influence all organizational thinking
• The paradox of culture: although culture lives in the brain, you change it through practices, not people
• Most organizations attempt culture change through training, values, or hiring but keep business practices the same
• Effective transformation requires rethinking fundamental business practices like planning and budgeting
• Leaders should develop pattern recognition skills to identify habitual thinking in their organizations
• Boomerang employees often have unique ability to recognize entrenched patterns and cultural models
For more insights, check out David's book "Disrupting Corporate Culture" which explores how cognitive science can transform organizational change efforts.

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