The story of a threatsix days beforeContinuing my exploration of narratives that catalyze coherence, I would be remiss…Intention and shared mental model space

Jankless2021As we Orient, examining our prediction error and updating our model of…A vision and a hallucination2022Talking with one of my colleagues, we found this simple lens. We…Polarity of intention, structure, and capacity2022I keep coming back to the post from last year, where I…Rigor and shared mental model space2021Alex Komoroske has another great set of new cards on rigor and…Hamilton Helmer pointed out this amazing connection between intention and shared mental model space that I haven’t seen before. If we are looking to gain more coherence within an organization, simply expanding the shared mental model does not seem sufficient. Yes, expanding this space creates more opportunities for coherence. But what role does the space play in realizing these opportunities?

Tension in Shared Mental Model Space2022This just occurred to me today, so I am writing this down…Say it in many different ways2021Shared mental model spaces are challenging to grow and expand. Mental models,…A metaphor that helped me: imagine the shared mental model space as a landscape. There are tall mountains, and deep chasms, as well as areas that make for a nice, pleasant hike. Those who are walking within this landscape will naturally form paths through those friendly areas. When a shared mental model space is tiny, everyone is basically seeing a different landscape. Everyone is walking their own hiking trails, and none of them match. Superimposed into one picture, it looks like Brownian motion. When the shared mental model space is large, the landscape is roughly the same, and so is the trail, growing into a full-blown road that everyone travels.

What the heck is strategy work?2022We turn the mastermind toward frameworks. The key objective of this role…The language frames the story2021Suppose you’ve said to me that “the falling maple leaves whirl in…Embodied Strategy2022I was having a great conversation with a colleague about organizational learning…On this road, where is everybody going? Where is the road leading them? Shared mental models aren’t just a way for us to communicate effectively. They also shape the outcomes of organizations. The slope of the road is slanted toward something. The common metaphors, terms, turns of the phrase, causal chains and shorthands — they are the forms that mold our organization’s norms and culture.

Mental models2022I use the term “mental models” a lot, and so I figured…Lenses, framings, and models2022At a meeting this week, I realized that I use the terms…If my team’s shared mental model space is dominated by war metaphors and ironclad logic of ruthless expansion, the team will see every challenge — external or internal — as a cutthroat battle. If my organization’s key metaphors are built around evaluating the impact of individual contributions, we might have trouble cohering toward a common goal.

Gravity and water2023I have been lucky enough to be part of the process of…Nudging Embodied Strategy2022The whole concept of the cone of embodied strategy is a bit…Steady winds, doldrums, and hurricanes2023It just so happened that this year, many of my friends and…Flux budget and predictability footprintthe day afterI’ve been thinking about this idea of the flux budget as a…Put differently, every team and organization has an intention. This intention is encoded in its shared mental model space. The slant of that road gently, but implacably pulls everyone toward similar conclusions and actions. This encoded intention may or may not be aligned with the intention of organization’s leaders. When it is, everything feels right and breezy. Things just happen. When it is not, there is a constant headwind felt by everyone. Everything is slow and frustrating. Despite our temptation to persevere, I wonder if we would be better off becoming aware of our shared mental model space, discerning the intention encoded in it, and patiently gardening the space to slant toward the intention we have in mind?