Small change: check your immune system

The word ‘corporate’ comes from the Latin for ‘body’. Like bodies, corporations have immune systems. 

The corporate immune system is designed to flush out unwanted intruders: bad strategies, say, or employees whose behaviour betrays the value system of the whole. Problem is, sometimes this immune system can also start attacking ‘intruders’ whose intentions and interventions are positive.

This is common at times of change: the body corporate attacks the very agents – employees, projects, external partners – whose actions might otherwise help it get stronger.

The solution? Take a fresh, critical look at your collective behaviour through the metaphor of the immune system, and identify where it needs bringing back to health.

Something to consider: how might we be harming those whose intention is to help?

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