I'll start this post with a disclaimer. I am a long time hater of the word "paradigm." That comes from too many meetings in which the word is thrown around like a hot potato with too little understanding of what goes beneath it. But despite the word's annoying misuse, there is something really important hidden behind it. So I want to talk about that today.
I'm going to start by delineating between three often confused terms: Mental Models, Worldview, and Paradigm. While my division between these terms is heavily influenced by my extensive reading on the subject, it is fair to say that the nuances are my own.
Mental Models - Peter Senge refers to mental models in his book The Fifth Discipline as "our deeply held internal images about how the world works." These internal images come from many places, our family of origin, culture of origin, religious or secular ethical backgrounds, and the meaning we've made out of our life experiences. O'Connor & McDermott (in The Art of Systems Thinking) refer to mental models as deeply rooted assumptions.
Worldview - This is a term that is thrown around pretty casually. In colloquial English, it seems to indicate a wholistic perspective, or a grouping of mental models. However the specific nature of "what makes a worldview" is pretty vague.
Paradigm - O'Connor & McDermott come to the rescue here. They indicate that a paradigm is a "self-reinforcing" mental model. So what does it mean to have an internal image that is "self-reinforcing"?
Well, it seems to go something like this:
1. I have beliefs about the world.
2. I unconsciously seek out data that supports those beliefs.
3. I unconsciously ignore/reject data that does not support those beliefs.
4. The data I accept reinforces my beliefs about the world.
I've seen this principle operate in organizations all the time. I once knew a leader who had a strong underlying belief that one of his peers was lazy. This leader would frequently point out to me all of the ways that this other person was not meeting the work standards. One day we had a conversation that went something like this.
"Cheri, did you notice how (name) didn't bother to volunteer to participate on one of the project teams?"
"I suppose so."
"This is just one more example of how he doesn't pull his weight around here.... I think... (and so on)"
"Did everyone else volunteer?"
"No, (other person) didn't either. But that is because he is just overwhelmed! He is not lazy like (name)...."
When we hold a belief, we tend to look for data that supports that belief. It's not malice, it's just the way the human brain is wired. The example above refers to one person's mental model about another manager. In this case, the leader I was talking to was unconsciously ignoring or "explaining away" any examples of hard work on the case of his peer, and noticing very strongly any evidence that he felt reinforced his view of the "lazy manager."
Have you ever noticed that when you get a new car you tend to notice cars like yours all over the road? It's the same principle at work, in a less destructive way of course.
So far we've discussed paradigms at the micro-level, or reinforcing mental models in a single person. Paradigms most powerfully come into play when they are held by groups. Here is a different example of how a paradigm can take over an organization.
Company X is a non-profit serving homeless families. They operate off of a deeply held belief that "We help people in crisis."
Company X attracts people who are mission-driven and passionate about helping homeless families. The organization has a strong history of providing crisis-assistance to families in need. Over time, the leadership and work teams in the company develop a set of mental models:
"Homeless families are helpless to break the cycle of poverty."
"We need to handle crisis needs (food, emergency medical care, short term housing) first."
Over time, an organization stuck in this paradigm may find themselves facing a set of issues:
- A reluctance to take any action that relies on the strength of homeless families (because the mental model is that they are "helpless")
- A tendency to ignore or reject ideas that go beyond crisis response, even when those ideas serve the mission and have high potential for success.
I could go into more detail, but you can probably see the point. We all exist within paradigms, and yet they tend to limit our options in the world because our beliefs focus us towards particular actions.
In my next post, I'll talk about how to break paradigms and the benefit of doing so as an organizational competency.
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