Mental Models: Useful Tools That Require Verification

Every adult has perceptions of reality and about how the world works; they’re called “mental models.” Mental models are shortcuts and sets of assumptions that help simplify everyday tasks. They provide understanding and by guide our thinking and decision-making, without us being overwhelmed by huge amounts of information that would overwhelm us. For example, experienced drivers have “unconscious competence,” where they’re not thinking about every step in the process of driving their car. Their mental model lets them make assumptions about how the car will function, how traffic patterns will be, etc., without obsessing over every detail. Unfortunately, the comfort that some drivers get with their thinking can lead them to become careless and cause accidents.

While mental models are valuable for navigating the world, they create blind spots that must be examined.

Origins of Mental Models

We develop our mental models most commonly through the influence of others and by personal experience.

As children, we learn from adults and adopt/adapt what we’re taught and how it influences us. As we grow older, most of us realize that not everything we learned as children is accurate. Real-world experience conflicts with what we were taught. Some people still believe that going outside in the winter without a coat or with wet hair will give you a cold, that bats are blind, that coffee will stunt kids’ growth, that diamonds are made from coal, or that ostriches bury their heads in the sand—all of which are false.

Key Characteristics and Benefits of Mental Models and Drawbacks of Mental Models

Mental models are:

• They’re assumptions we’ve made through our experience about how things work. We can safely assume the sun will rise in the morning, barring some planet-destroying event. The predictability provided by our assumptions is the cornerstone of mental models. That predictability provides the “shortcuts” that relieve us of the effort of constantly thinking through every detail of something.
• Simplified explanations. They’re shortened ways of thinking about more complex situations. You drive to work without thinking about every little detail of how the car operates or what could go wrong.
• Constantly evolving. We face new and changing situations every day, particularly in business and our relationships with co-workers, customers, and competitors. So, we change our mental models based on new information (hopefully).
• We have numerous mental models about things that affect us every day:
  • How our co-workers and direct reports are likely to perform
  • Our everyday routines that ease our lives
  • Workplace culture, products and services, customers, competitors, the overall economy, and how our industry is faring

Pitfalls of Mental Models

Mental models are, by definition, incomplete, which means they’re not always accurate and dependable. We can’t know everything, but we think we know enough to trust our models. However, because they’re incomplete, they can’t be free of errors. We often run into trouble when we encounter data that conflicts with what we think is “right.”

Because cognitive dissonance happens when our models don’t work, we usually try to make up a story that allows us to accept our mental model anyway—even if it’s flawed. Since our models are somewhat vague and incomplete, we usually feel comfortable—at least initially—dismissing information that conflicts with our mental model. But we get into trouble when we disregard conflicting data and make decisions based on a flawed model. We essentially say, “Well, this is what I learned, this is how it’s always worked, this is how we’ve always done it, and that’s what I’m going to do.”

How do we examine our mental models and modify them as needed?

Because our mental models are so useful, they’re difficult to change. In a previous post, we talked about cognitive biases and how they get us into trouble. If we’re going to depend so heavily on mental shortcuts, it’s necessary—at least occasionally—to figure out whether they’re still valid.

Remember the old phrase, “The way I see the issue is the issue.” There are numerous business examples where unexamined—or at least unchallenged—mental models spelled the death of the business or seriously hampered the expansion of an industry.

• In the early part of the 20th century, railroads were adamant about being in the “railroading business” rather than the transportation business. As highways and large trucks developed, customers had far more options than just shipping by rail.
• Kodak and Polaroid both floundered because they insisted that film (Kodak) was essential and that customers would always want hard-copy prints (Polaroid) of their images. Digital imaging quickly eclipsed both companies.

Examples of industries that successfully overhauled or expanded their business models:

• Not wanting to make the same kind of mistake as the railroads, UPS and Fed-Ex developed their logistics businesses rather than just the transportation or package delivery businesses they’d started out in. While still maintaining their shipping services, you can go to a UPS store or a Fed-X store and obtain all kinds of helpful business and personal services.
• “Dining” has expanded beyond fixed-location restaurants to things like food trucks and pop-up eateries.
• Reading/Publishing. The old model relied exclusively on physical books. Digital formats, both audio and visual, are now a huge market.

Facts vs opinions

In order to examine our mental models, begin by distinguishing facts from opinions and judgments.

• Look at information that’s verifiable. Is it written or otherwise documented, and has it been checked for accuracy? Ask lots of other questions:
  • What’s the source?
  • How reliable is the source and the resulting information?
  • Who did the research and analysis, and was it vetted by other parties?
  • How old is the information? Have other situations arisen which makes the model questionable?
• Interpret the information. Here’s where our assumptions (opinions) should be questioned.
  • What are our assumptions?
  • What are we missing?
  • What do we think we know, but we’re just doing things we’ve always done?
  • What still work,s and what’s shaky?
  • Having an unbiased third party ask these kinds of tough questions is also a good consideration.
• Evaluate the verified information. This is where we make value judgments about whether the information is really helpful. We risk getting a false sense of security when we have information overload—information that is accurate and reliable but not particularly helpful in figuring out if the model is still flawed.
• Once we separate facts from opinions and judgments, we have a place to start determining whether our mental model is accurate.

The keys to testing our mental models

The old phrase, “Ya gotta wanna” applies here. You have to want to do the work of stopping, thinking a bit more slowly, and examining whether your current mental model is still accurate—particularly when a major decision is at hand. Nobel Prize-winning economist Daniel Kahneman’s best-selling book, “Thinking, Fast and Slow,” describes “System 1” thinking as fast and intuitive, and “System 2” as slower and more deliberate. We need to slow down and use System 2 processes to examine mental models.

No one likes to change something they’ve relied on and that has been helpful. But major decisions—those that involve new products and services, a great deal of money, and significant impacts on people’s lives—certainly call for at least slowing down and asking tough questions: Does this still work? Is it reliable? Are we willing to bet the business or our reputation on it?