Professor Verity J Brown, BSc, MBA, PhD, is Professor of Psychology & Neuroscience at the University of East London. She was previously Pro vice-Chancellor (Impact & Innovation) and before that she was Vice Principal (Enterprise & Engagement) at the University of St Andrews. She has published widely about the brain’s executive processes, responsible for attention and planning, which are damaged in many psychiatric and neurological conditions. Executive processes are dysfunctional in many organizations too, but is this merely a metaphor or can understanding one dysfunction aid in understanding the other? Biological metaphors are often used to understand how organizations work: to what extent do they describe homologous, versus merely analogous, processes?