In a human brain,...

in a large society,...

and in a company:

1. Situation recognition by a company limbic system: A large independent department or company structure will mainly be concerned with constantly interpreting the global economic and political envirnoment as well as internal company affairs. The findings of this department will then be moulded into a company strategy. The company strategy can be identified with an emotion. As the limbinc system in a human brain, the "company limbic department" will be the centre of a rather diffuse and widespread system of neural connections (as opposed to the rather specific information exchange between, for example, operative departments). Employees of this department will spend a good deal of their time with reading newspapers, scanning theinter- or intranet, social activities, visiting colleagues in all sorts of departments etc.

2. Emotion realization via thecompany budget as hormones: People usually go where money can be expected to be most abundant. If, for instance, the European Communion calls for proposals regarding "research & development" activities into the climate change, companies and institutions from all over Europe wills start to apply their intelligence to anything to do with climate change. Similarly, the "company limbic system" should exert a strong influence over the yearly budget. Emotions can be clearly associated with a certain distribution of money. If the current emotion is "aggressive expansion" much money might be directed towards recruiting, research & development, maintenance. If, however, the company emotion is rather "threat of bankrupty", money will be deflected from long-term investments towards departments and projects capable of producing short-term revenue.

Questions open to discussion...

In how far could the work of the "company limbic system" be formalized, anwering the following exemplary questions:

• how many people should work there and what should be their qualification?
• should the department be defined as a fixed set of people or rather as a rule of meetings and discussions, including people from many other departments and even from outside the company?
• which information should be directed towards which working place via the company communication software?
• at which meetings should the company limbic system be present?
• should there be a fixed set of clearly defined company-emotions and if yes, which?
• which reactions should be linked with which emotion?
• can a certain type of company budget be associated with a certain company emotion?
• which is the right voting system for all the employees of the company limbic system to always reach a uniform decision?