Mechanism
Institutional Memory
TL;DR
Organizations forget faster than ecosystems - employees leave, leaders retire, documentation gets lost.
Derived from cultural transmission in species like elephants, where older individuals serve as repositories of survival knowledge spanning multiple cycle phases.
Business Application of Institutional Memory
Organizations forget faster than ecosystems - employees leave, leaders retire, documentation gets lost. Build explicit systems: document cycle histories, create crisis playbooks (like JPMorgan's), embed cycle awareness in onboarding, and maintain board members/advisors who experienced past cycles.