Your Organization has a Personality | Part 3 EN

And it might be working against you. Because its information-processing preferences are often one-sided, and unknown to management. Welcome to the world of The Organizational Personality (TOP).

Your organisation has a personality. And it might be working against you.

Because its information-processing preferences are often one-sided, and unknown to management.

So bear with me: We need to briefly dive into scientific personality psychology. It's worth it, I promise. One short detour, and you'll immediately understand why I claim: organisations have a personality.

Let's take it step by step.

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First: The HUMAN Level

In a nutshell, here's the core insight of an innovative systems theory from scientific personality psychology (Kuhl, PSI Theory, 2001).

Every human being runs on exactly the same systems and exactly the same system connections. These systems process information of all kinds.

The difference? Lies in the STRENGTH of activation.

Every person prefers certain systems and connections. Has, so to speak, ✴️ favourite systems and ✴️ favourite connections.

This means: the values for these systems and connections are significantly more pronounced than for others.

Additionally, every person has completely different content (knowledge, experience, autobiography, etc.)

This gives us the triad of the framework shared by all human beings:

Systems, system connections, cognitive content.

The challenge for all of us:

Learning to 'play' on ALL systems and ALL connections, not just the preferred ones. That's called personality development. And those who can do this have well-developed self-steering skills.

Then the fan of options 🪭 opens up, and new behavioural and experiential possibilities become available:

I usually prefer to do it this way, but I can do it differently too !

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Second: The ORGANISATIONAL Level

Those who think that work outputs consist primarily of knowledge and experience are mistaken.

Authors and author groups also pour their ✴️ favourite systems and ✴️ favourite connections into their work outputs.

And so it follows that these thinking preferences show up in work outputs such as branding, strategy, audit findings, or customer feedback.

Thinking preferences have an impact, regardless of whether the organisation is aware of them or not. Their very specific characteristics, advantages, and disadvantages are clearly visible, provided you know how to read them.

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So what is the 'personality of an organisation'?

Simply this: The thinking preferences that are typical for an organisation, across different work outputs.

Those with an interest in a holistic approach to risk management use these patterns as additional levers for intervention and control.

And yes, that is exactly my work. Let's talk.