Pattern Entrainment

Chris Corrigan is one of my best pals. He’s a kind soul. A generative designer of participative process. A welcoming colleague. And a very good thinker. One of the ways that I know him is for his ability to apply good theory to absolutely practical work, whether with a small team or as societal way of being.

Below is a snippet from one of his posts on “pattern entrainment.” It’s how we get stuck in our thoughts and misapply solutions that seemed appropriate in one system, but are so misguided in other settings.

Pattern entrainment is the idea that once our brains learn something, it is very difficult to break that knowledge.  And while we may be able to change our knowledge of facts fairly easily – such as admitting a mistake of a factual nature “you’re right, there is no 7:30 ferry after all!” – changing the way we make sense of facts is surprisingly hard.

Have a peek at the full post. It’s really good material.

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