Transforming clients and executives: How to enrich their mental models

Rich and Impoverished Mental Models

The mental models people use to make decisions in their business and personal lives can be rich in taking into account many issues and allowing diverse perspectives, or they can be impoverished in being locked into a single simple way of looking at things. In a simple world, simple mental models can be very effective. In the highly complex and dynamic business environment we work in we need similarly rich and diverse mental models. A related perspective is how flexible or rigid a person’s mental models are. Flexibility means the ability to change not only our views and opinions, but also the very basis of those views. Rigidity is the inability to change views and opinions, even when these prove to be less than useful.

The law of requisite variety, drawn from the field of cybernetics, states that a system must display at least as much variety as its environment to be successful. In other words, you are completely subject to changes in your environment—that is, you effectively have no choices—unless you have at least the same degree of flexibility and complexity as the system in which you operate. What this means is that our mental models must be at least as rich, diverse, and flexible as our environment. In our increasingly complex world, rich and flexible mental models are essential for business survival.

In the context of dealing with clients, we can add immense value if we can assist our clients in developing richer, more flexible mental models. This represents the highest level of adding value to client decision making, and one closely tied to developing intimate and profitable client relationships. On another level, if our clients have impoverished, rigid mental models, it is extremely difficult for us to add value. If we can help to enrich their mental models, we are both adding immense value, and paving the way for ongoing further added value and business within the context of a powerful knowledge-based relationship.

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Adding Value to Mental Models

Decision making can only be done within the context of the mental models of those making the decisions. As a result, usually the area in which the most value can be added to client decision making is in impacting the mental models themselves.

This can be done in three ways:

* Making mental models explicit
* Integrating mental models
* Enriching mental models

Making Mental Models Explicit

An important part of adding value to clients’ mental models is helping to make them explicit or visible. Mental models are almost invariably beyond the awareness of the individual or group, and depending on the situation they can either be useful, or a barrier to success. In either case, making the mental models explicit and clear will be valuable in assisting clients to make better decisions. Helping a client’s senior managers understand the way they are currently thinking about their business, and their underlying assumptions, is itself extremely valuable and paves the way to help them take on new perspectives.

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Integrating Mental Models

Integrating the mental models of individuals on decision-making teams at client organizations, especially around broad themes such as the business or investment environment, is one of the most valuable services possible. The idea is certainly not to make people’s mental models the same. Differences and divergence in individual ways of thinking within a group is invaluable. Integrating mental models is about developing a common framework that allows team members to share the ways in which their mental models are different. The process also provides a basis for constructive communication, and builds a richer mental model that incorporates a wide variety of perspectives.

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Enriching Mental Models

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