Re: How to Bring Out Mental Models?

Richard Burg (raburg@well.sf.ca.us)
Tue, 17 Jan 1995 00:03:17 -0800

>...My question is how to reveal people's mental
>models in a way that people engage rather than defend or attack.

If the models are cooperatively constructed there is much less difficulty
bringing everyone into an open and non-defensive conversation about the
interpretation. Thus if you gather data about a system by interacting with
the system, you can use it TO NOTICE THE SAME PATTERNS when they appear
with groups elsewhere - like an executive staff meeting. The higher level
group in the system will inevitably eacho a pattern observed elsewhere in
the system, and can begin to examine it when they share the experience of
observing it - when their attention is called to it. This is a fundamental
phenomenon of (human) system behavior.

This form of action research ...where a pattern is identified in the
cultural matrix, noted and stored by the consultant, and recalled and used
in a process observation in a group... can help the group begin to see the
system (organization) in a new way (e.g., _what-is_ [sic] rather than
_what-is-espoused_). Multiple data points in the large system increase
meaning and accuracy of the intervention. When the pattern is observed in
the management team there is an opportunity to explore the pattern
collaboratively ... based upon shared experience...and mutually enriching
discussion of the pattern and its meaning in the culture. The culture in
the managers' minds interacts with the culture experienced by the work
force (the pattern identified elsewhere and commented upon in the
management group), and then there may be shared interest and energy to move
the culture ... Or, in the language of this thread, help others see
alternative mental models, metaphors, etc.

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|
It takes creativity to get a
plane to fly.
It takes rigor to keep it in the
air.
-o-o-
Phillipe Starke
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Richard Burg Voice 510-848-4258
Meridian Group Fax 510-848-4257
1827A Fifth Street 800-3MERIDIAN (800-363-7426)
Berkeley, CA US MERIDIANGP@AOL.COM
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