Organizational Culture & Meme Therapy

This entry is by no means a synthesis, but an idea that I may pursue. This morning I received an email from my ex-principal in Shanghai, Bernadette Carmody, and I couldn't help but think about her persistent work there with constructive group culture, and how much of a difference it made to focus upon and articulate specific features of the culture.

We know that culture manifests itself in pattered and symbolic behaviors. This got me to thinking about the concept of memetics, or the "meme" that Richard Dawkins developed in 1976. Now I'm not offering any type of novel insight into the wider cultural application of a study of memetics in society, but have studies at single sites (such as a campus) been published? It seems that there could even be an opportunity to work on direct memetic engineering, as opposed just working with generalized concepts of positive interaction in a culture.

Prior to Dawkins' memetic theory, de Bono published, "The Mechanism of Mind" in 1969. In my opinion this is still his best work, as he took a functional approach to the development of memory and behavioral patterns. It's this recognition and identification of pattern formation and habituation that interests me, as his concept of "d-lines" on a "memory surface" seem to align with memetic theory, and it offers a 'mechanical' view of why 'old habits die hard.'

Ironically, I was about to also suggest that concepts of mirror neurons, as raised by Daniel Coleman in "Social Intelligence" might also be an interesting tact for an analysis of organizational culture, but directly after his book's discussion of neural mirrors and "social synchrony," he launches into a discussion of memes! Hence, this is not new thinking, but do we have models and examples of how to apply these theories of social genetics to a workplace? It may not be difficult to find an example of a 'toxic culture' with allusion to general behavioral patterns in that group, however, do we have concrete examples of memetic viruses 'infecting' a group? There may also be examples of "meme therapy," whereby a positive meme is 'released' (either intentionally or unintentionally) and then propogated within the culture.

Beyond my initial question of whether this kind of study has been completed and published previously [ie. I need to do further reading] there is actually ongoing utility that may be derived from an organizational self-study. If an organization actively studies its own behavioral patterns and is able to identify specific memes/discrete units, then they may have a targeted strategy for enhancing their culture through codification and "meme therapy." Furthermore, the same kind of group therapy could be applied as a study within the classroom and directly relate to social transmission of memes in students' actual lives.

In terms of application within the classroom, there are a number of concepts and approaches that could be used:
(1) General use in order to enhance group/student/school culture
(2) Use in Social Science/Studies to highlight sociolinguistics
(3) Interdisciplinary use in Science to parallel study of genetic transmission
(4) Interdisciplinary use in Math to study statistical analysis
(5) Interdisciplinary use in Language Arts to study language structure and the synthesis of ideas.
(6) Interdisciplinary use in Health to study physical and psychological impact of various forms of memes. In some ways, concepts that are already promoted such as, "No put-downs" could become launchpads for wider application to other memes with negative semantic loading.
(7) Literacy: at Shanghai American School 6th graders worked on a unit about "truths," which included analysis of some forwarded emails/spam. The propogation of these kinds of items is a prime example of a memetic virus.

A study of memetics and its impact upon organizational culture could either be longitudinal or it could be packaged as a short unit to simple highlight features and ideas that can be modified within the culture. Regardless, a scientific identification of specific transmissions/memes could prove to be a powerful social and linguistic lesson for any kind of organization, as long as the procedure does not target vectors (ie. those who transmit/propogate memes), but only the memes themselves.

If you happen to know of any studies or recommended reading, please get in touch with me.