Two shoe sales reps were dispatched to a remote area. A few days later, their supervisor received brief emails from each.
The first one read, “Please get me on the next flight home – no one here wears shoes.”
The second one read: “I’m going to need more inventory – no one here owns shoes!”
Mental models are the paradigms or lenses through which you view the world. If you know the work of Chris Argyris, Donald Schön or Peter Senge, then the concept of mental models will sound familiar.
Senge, in his seminal work The Fifth Discipline, described mental models as “deeply ingrained assumptions, generalizations, or even pictures or images that influence how we understand the world and how we take action.” He further explained that differences in mental models help explain how two people can observe the same event and later describe it differently.
Because mental models often live below the level of awareness, their influence on behavior may be invisible and unexamined. An important part of the self-work of learning to respond differently in conflict and negotiate better for yourself and your team is to uncover and examine how your mental models influence the ways you act during such situations.
Senge and others have suggested that mental models are generative – you can learn and adopt new mental models that help you navigate negotiations, creative problem-solving, and conflict in more effective ways.
What does it take? In my experience, three key ingredients:
- A willingness to be self-aware in ways you may not have been before.
- The right kind of guidance to help you discern the mental models that help and hinder you.
- Commitment – enough time and an effective approach for adopting a new mental habit.
Reframing problems as opportunities http://goo.gl/fb/SSnCI #in
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
RT @tammylenski
Reframing problems as opportunities http://goo.gl/fb/SSnCI #in
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
Given the two different frames, shouldn't the mediated solution have the second person sell the first a ticket paid for in shoes?
I love the Senge reference. This reminds me of the four lenses concept. What kind of approach might you advocate for adopting a new mental model? What kind of mechanisms can we use to avoid returning to our previous behaviors and reinforce the new model?
Tammy
What a great story to frame the point you wanted to make re framing. So much of life is the context in which we want to see it.
Two factors that affect our capacity to see situations as opportunities, methinks are having a flexible (versus fixed) mindset as Carol Dweck has discovered and having a positive (versus a pessimistic) temperament as Marty Seligman has researched.
~ another fan of your insights
RT @tammylenski: Reframing problems as opportunities http://goo.gl/fb/SSnCI #in
This comment was originally posted on Twitter
Thank you Conflict Zen for this reminder about mindset http://conflictzen.com/reframing-problems-as-oppo… #in
This comment was originally posted on Twitter