John Vervaeke is a cognitive scientist whose long YouTube video series, “Awakening from the Meaning Crisis”, shows us the relevance of cognitive science to our everyday lives and even to how we learn.

A lack of meaning in life often occurs when a person is stuck in a rut. Translated into Vervaeke’s cognitive scientific language, this means they are unable to grow and challenge themselves, because their perspective has been narrowed by “parasitic mental processing.” They have been frozen by an inability to filter in relevance and filter out what’s not relevant in their eco-systems.

To think of this in Vervaeke’s terms, we need to avoid the above, the playing out ‘dead scripts’ – that is, a simple input-to-output function, something that, in all honesty, a machine could probably do. The ‘scripts’ we fulfil, our professional purpose, must be part of a living, growing system of “fresh” interaction and application. We must also update our concepts and strategies for learning, to address making dead scripts come alive in the learning domain.

 Individuals who find themselves acting out a dead script feel undervalued and insecure regarding their role in organisations, expressing dissatisfaction with having accumulated the years of information needed for the position in the first place. Dead scripts hold on to industrial age thinking and find reasons to avoid change or examine the reasons change is needed and happening at a rapid pace. Dead scripts entrench command and control and rigid ideas about leadership.

John Vervaeke speaks about cognitive distribution and the need to challenge existing hierarchies if we want to bring life to the scripts we fulfil.

Cognitive distribution is a counter to the top-down leadership approach.

A hierarchical model creates dead scripts and commodifies knowledge, negatively impacting everyone not at the top of the pyramid. This outdated system is buttressed by learning techniques that avoid dealing with the core transformation needed to create new results.

Updating scripts entails more than collecting more facts. It goes further to the core of learning itself – a truly ‘live’ script is one which seeks to constantly grow.  Experience and discover new relevant scripts for your organisation in one of CPS’s transformational learning programmes. Get live scripts and improved results. #Change Tomorrow