Mental models: Are they stopping you to have real experience

In Thoughtworks I was part of 9 months long program focused on women leadership. Every month sessions introduced new tools for leadership.

Right after two months I started seeing change in thinking process, knowing my blind spots, knowing myself better, feeling more confidence started taking more space in my heart and mind rather than guilt.

In third session trainer introduced us with a tool called mental models. That tool was such an eye opener and it made me realize few important things:

1. How people get blinded with current situations because of past experience
2. How someone else’s experience and facts stops others to have their own real experience with people and situations
3. How mental models stops us in taking better decisions because we could not keep biases away and look at problem from fresh prespective.

What are mental models

Rather than giving you definition which I would have copied from somewhere let me tell you few examples so you can form your definitions

Few mental models in personal life

• How many times we see a female driver and try to be little away thinking, she might not drive properly.
• In India, Mother-in laws 90% of time are considered villian
• Every politician is corrupted, even if someone does good there has to be hidden bad agenda.

Trainer shared us this great movie: https://youtu.be/nKEiBiNCC2U and it was eye opener for all of us how much we are blinded by mental models.

I think by now you know what are mental models mean, and if you have interesting ones. Please share by adding in comments.

How mental models are built

The model was first put forward by organisational psychologist Chris Argyris and used by Peter Senge in “The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization.”

The Ladder of Inference describes the thinking process that we go through, usually without realizing it, to get from a fact to a decision or action. The thinking stages can be seen as rungs on a ladder and are shown in figure below:

Starting at the bottom of the ladder, we have reality and facts. From there, we:

• Experience these selectively based on our beliefs and prior experience.
• Interpret what they mean.
• Apply our existing assumptions, sometimes without considering them.
• Draw conclusions based on the interpreted facts and our assumptions.
• Develop beliefs based on these conclusions.
• Take actions that seem “right” because they are based on what we believe.

How to deal with mental models

Same ladder of inference can be used to break mental models and open space for new realities.

I want to share my personal story of breaking one mental model.

I had a colleague who lost his parents at very early age. He shared one childhood story about how his aunt punished him for some unusual demand.

My assumptions and conclusions: I find it a very sad story because I found the punishment was very strict for small child and did not feel good about aunt, concluding his aunt as bad person.

Some of you might agree with me and if you do agree, then your beliefs are also based on movies or some past realities with someone else. If you notice my colleague did not say that his aunt was a bad person or give me any data about it.x

My actions: If I would have ever met this person, my behaviour and actions towards that person would have based on my belief that she is a bad person.

After introducing to mental models few months later I was sharing this story with someone else and I realized that if the same punishment would have been given by his own mother I would have not considered mother as bad mother but as strong mother who is teaching right thing.

If I meet his aunt now ever I would greet and treat her like any of my other friend’s aunt.

I hope this blog helps some of you to recognise mental models and create new realities and leaves you thinking why would I live a bad reality because of someone else had bad reality.

Really liked the below image shared by trainer

Last but not the least:

Mental models are not bad they become starting point to analyse the situation, they just need to revalidated.