Cargo cult
Imitating surface forms of a successful process without the underlying substance.
Richard Feynman's phrase. Pacific islanders during WWII saw planes deliver cargo at airstrips. After the war, they built mock airstrips with mock control towers and waited for planes. The surface form was right; the substance was missing.
The principle applies broadly. Companies copy Google's perks without copying Google's culture. Founders copy Silicon Valley's office aesthetics without copying its operating discipline. Students copy successful people's habits without understanding why those habits work.
For operators, the discipline is to ask, before copying any successful practice: what's the underlying mechanism? Why does this actually work? If you can't answer, you're cargo culting.
Examples in the wild
Open-plan offices are largely cargo cult. Companies copied the Silicon Valley aesthetic without the underlying conditions that made it work. The result was widely measured productivity decline.
Following famous investors' positions without understanding their thesis is cargo cult investing. The surface action is the same; the substance (their reasons) isn't transferred.
Reading successful people's morning routines without understanding the underlying logic produces cargo cult mornings: surface imitation without substance.
Cargo cult is one of the mental models we apply through real cases inside the Pareto MBA — a part-time program for professionals who want to think clearly about business.