Models – Shaun Coffey

Persistent problems often seem intractable because of the frame through which we view them. A fixed point of view on an issue may lead us to struggle because we are trying to solve the wrong problem.”

Elizabeth Heichler, 2022 MIT Sloan Management Review. Summer 2022 v 63(4) P.1

“Reality is too big for our little heads. So we use simplifications of reality to deal with it, impressions of reality: ideas, concepts, frames, models, forms, and theories. These help to explain the reality we encounter. Hence, our choice is not between them, let’s say, theory and reality, so much as between alternative theories of reality. Logically, we choose the theory that is most useful under the circumstances – not the best, but the best available – no matter how imperfect it may be.”

Henry Mintzberg (2023) Understanding Organizations…Finally! P.119

According to Carol Dweck, there are two basic mindsets, fixed and growth.

These mindsets are a model for how we think, and as a model they help us to explain/understand our reality. But, like all models they are not your reality – they are useful representations but are always incomplete.

Look at the following common models of thinking

Open/Closed
Divergence/Convergence
Exploring/Exploiting
Disrupting/Capturing
Creating/Executing
Unfreeze/Freeze
Diffuse/Focused
Growth/Fixed

Eight different ways to say the same things. 16 words that can be used to describe a “mindset”. And therein lies a basic problem of these models.

A useful diagnostic tool (the model) is used as if it were the reality. You get typecast (or typecast yourself); for example, as open or closed, as an explorer or exploiter. You tick a box to say, yes that’s me.

Tag: Models

Reality is too big for our little heads…use models not mindsets to think

Don’t pigeonhole yourself according to a “mindset”, rather use it to understand the way you function.