I repurpose the term “cognitive capture” to describe what happens to people within organisations who get swept up by the groupthink of company values which are distorted by the organisation’s need to survive, usually at all costs.
They are always at odds with at least some of the external stakeholders and often of the staff too, who may not even realise it, or pretend not to see it (e.g. the grotesque American system of 401k invested in your own employer. Lose your job and your savings.)
A good example is the eBay employees charged with cyberstalking. I’m sure they all convinced each other they were doing the right things for their eBay. These aren’t rogue individuals. How did eBay culture become so toxic that they thought this is the way we do things around here?
Another is my former employer, where they all lied to authorities to protect themselves and their company after committing fraud which had been normalised right across the company as the “35 day month”.
#ValuesOverValue