What Does Trust Mean?

I like to use the following four beliefs I learned from Esther Derby to define trust in the workplace.

1. I believe you have the ability to do the things you say you’ll do.
2. I believe you will do the things you agree to do  – or let me know when you need to renegotiate.
3. I believe you have good intentions towards me.
4. I believe that if you have an issue with me, you’ll bring it up directly with me, not talk behind my back.

Following these points makes trust building somewhat straight forward. I do what I say I’m going to do. If something happens and it looks like I won’t be able to meet my commitment, I say so. I’ll talk with you instead of talking with others about you.

Is It Always That Simple?

It can be that simple. Sometimes things get complicated when actions and information get interpreted differently. These complications often happen when we’re tired, in a hurry, don’t take time to process what’s happening here and now and resort to a “then and there” responses. “Then and there” responses come from our past and at some level remind us of the current situation. We not only respond as if the current situation exactly resembles the prior situation (it doesn’t) we can get the meta-response of “not this again!”

Here’s some ideas what to do:

1. Count to 10. This allows you a chance to focus on a breath or two and replay  what just happened.
2. Consider how your intake preferences might be influencing what you’re feeling.
3. Remember we’re all different.
   • I’ve had discussions where it turned out we both argued for the same point, but we used different words.
   • Different values motivate us. (see the Why Not Ask Why? sidebar )
   • We have different work styles.
   • We have different capabilities.
4. Allow for generous interpretations. Seek to understand the other person’s view point.

Having a shared history with your team members helps generate trust. You know their capabilities and how they’ve performed so far. If a team member hasn’t performed according to their commitments people remember and judge this commitment accordingly.

If the team has recently formed, take every opportunity to learn more about your new team mates, their similarities and differences. This can happen as part of both formal  (pair programming, lunch and learns) and informal (coffee breaks etc) activities.

Like safety, trust can come and go based on the context and what’s happening. You can unilaterally decide to trust a teammate. How their response fits the four beliefs determines how much you continue to trust them.

It all started with a tweet I posted:

“Why” questions trigger feelings bypassing data input and thinking. #dontdothat

As this got retweeted, interesting questions started coming my way:

• What about the Five Whys?
• Do you have data?
• What is your context?

All good questions.

“Why” questions have the ability to both gather data and to probe for underlying thoughts and decisions that lead to action. Other interrogatives (what, when, where, how) provide a better way to gather data since they focus on physical items or actions.

So when do “Why” questions work well? How might “Why” questions lead to unexpected results? What can we do about that?

Solving Problems: Toyota and the Five Whys

I was writing process control code for a living when I first heard about the Five Whys. It made sense for finding a problem’s root cause. The example went something like this:

1. Why did the line stop? Because the conveyor gear reduction box froze.
2. Why did the gear reduction box freeze? Because it didn’t get lubricated during the last preventive maintenance.
3. Why didn’t it get lubricated during the last maintenance? It’s a new piece of equipment and wasn’t on the preventive maintenance check list.
4. Why didn’t it get added to the maintenance check list when it was installed? Because we don’t have a standard way of adding items to the check list.
5. How can we create a standard way of adding items to the check list so this won’t happen again?

Asking why uncovers another layer of information that eventually leads to the problem’s root cause and allows us to craft a solution to (hopefully) prevent the problem. Since we’re starting with observable data, asking why works well here.

Gathering Data: Five-year-old Whys

Anyone who has spent time around children has probably experienced a period of incessant whys.

Why is the sky blue? Because air molecules scatter light from the sun.

Why do the air molecules scatter the light? Because they get in the way of the sun’s rays.

Why do they get in the way?

(And so on.)

Often, the question-and-answer process ends with “Because I said so, that’s why.”

Asking why provides children with new information, and data expands their knowledge, so why works well here—at least until “Because I said so.”

When Why Might Not Work Well

Your teammates, managers, and coworkers are neither mechanical processes, which don’t care if we talk about them, nor five-year-olds attempting to gather more information about their world. They come complete with experiences you don’t know about and ideas about how things should work. As such, your why questions may trigger in others an emotional response that catches you unaware. What might generate such a response?

An Interaction Model

The Satir Interaction Model [1] provides a framework for understanding how interactions proceed, as shown in figure 1.

Figure 1

Take Tony, for example. You’ve noticed the build server has been sending emails announcing that the build broke, and Tony usually makes the commit that occurred just before the build that broke. Wanting to be helpful, you head to Tony’s cube and ask, “Why do you keep breaking the build?” You’re looking for information. The message has been spoken and becomes the input.

Based on how Tony feels and his background, he can infer several different meanings. He may think you’re picking on him. He may think you mean “Tony, you’re incompetent.” He may interpret the question as a request for information.

The meaning Tony chooses determines his feelings about your message. If he thinks you’re picking on him, perhaps he will feel afraid or threatened. If he believes you think he’s incompetent, he might become defensive, or he might be relieved that you might help with the problems he’s having.

Tony also will have feelings about those feelings based on his background. Perhaps his father taught him not to back down when threatened, or to prove you’re right when challenged, or even that accepting help shows weakness. Tony may feel ashamed, angry, confused, or relieved.

Based on Tony’s life experiences, he may defend himself by:

• Blaming—“The stupid formatting rules take too long to check. If IT would buy us better computers, this would not happen.”
• Placating—“I’m so stupid. I should do better.”
• Being super-reasonable—“Has anyone checked the rules on the build server to make sure they agree with how the builds work on my workstation?”
• Feigning irrelevance—“It’s almost lunch. Where should I go today?”

After these steps, Tony will work on his response. What can he safely say? What do his family, social, and corporate cultures say about what he can say? Some comments can be career limiting. Does he have an “always be agreeable” rule? These commenting rules affect his verbal response.

Everything between the Intake and Response steps happen internally for Tony, but you can guess what happens based on his response. If Tony replies in a way congruent with your intention—“I’m having problems with formatting. Can you help me figure out what’s happening?”—the request for information succeeded. If Tony becomes bellicose, belligerent, or his answer bewilders you, the question triggered a meaning and feeling not related to your request for information.

The Interaction Model and Temperaments

Figure 2

In Congruent Action [2] Gerald M. (Jerry) Weinberg collapses the steps from Feelings through Defenses into a single step, which he calls Significance, and correlates how Keirsey’s Temperaments [3] (see the sidebar) tend to work through the Interaction Model:

• SJs stay in Intake mode too long.
• NTs tend to go instantly to Meaning.
• NFs tend to jump immediately to Significance.
• SPs go so fast it looks to others as if they jump instantly to Response.

More than half of IT professionals implicitly skip the Intake step based on their personality preference. You want to know “why” to collect data—41.6 percent will look for the meaning behind your question and another 12.1 percent think about how the question makes them feel.

Jerry offers the following suggestions:

• For NTs/NFs, ask, “What did you see or hear that led you to that conclusion?”
• For SJs, ask, “What can we conclude from the data we have so far?”
• For SPs, appeal to their desire to be clever and ask them to teach you how they did it.

Use Data Questions to Gather Data

Questions that start with other interrogative words, such as when, what, where, and how, help people focus on the data aspect of the question.

If we ask Tony a different question, we can help him focus on the data we would like to know—for example, “What steps do you take prior to committing to the build server?” or “How do you decide it’s time to commit your code?” Tony still traverses the Interaction Model, but we’ve explicitly asked for data.

Over the years, I’ve had some why questions bounce back to me with responses that left me wondering how what I said triggered that response. Using the Satir Interaction Model, I’ve learned to unravel the responses. I’ve also learned that if I want data, I should use data-oriented questions that start with how, what, when, and where, and use why as a last choice.

On the other hand, if you want practice unraveling communications, start with why as often as possible.

[SIDEBAR]

Temperaments

“There are two types of people: people who divide people into two types and those who don’t.” –Barth’s Distinction

Dividing people into groups is a time-honored tradition. Circa 340 BC, Plato divided people into four groups: Artisans, Guardians, Idealists, and Rationals. Since then, many others, including Aristotle, Galen, Paracelsus, Fromm, and Myers, have found ways to divide people into four groups.

In 1978, David Keirsey and Marilyn Bates “developed and described” the temperaments “in modern form.” They “found that selectively combining [N with T/F and S with J/P] produced a descriptive personality system similar to the four temperaments … described centuries earlier.” [4]

“When the only tool you have is a hammer, it is tempting to treat everything as if it were a nail.” –Abraham Maslow

I like to remind clients that temperaments represent one way of understanding people and how they interact.

References

1. The Satir Model: Family Therapy and Beyond, 1991, Science & Behavior Books, Inc., pp 121-129
2. Quality Software Management, Volume 3, Congruent Action, 1994, Gerald M. Weinberg, pp 108-109
3. Please Understand Me II, 1998, Prometheus Nemesis Book Company
4. MBTI Manual: A Guide to the Development and Use of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, 2003, Isabel Briggs Myers and Mary H. McCaulley
5. From What Type Am I? Discover Who You Really Are, 1998, Renee Baron
6. From the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Atlas of Type Tables, Macdaid, McCaulley, and Kainz, CAPT, 1985

This article was originally posted on StickyMinds.com on January 28, 2011

Your diagram is interesting, at least two ways.

First, when you’re not doing email (or phone) there are more “channels” than simply “language”. Indeed, in your example you two were operating with a particularly thin communication mechanism. One of the countermeasures, I think, is having a pile of communication channels going on at once, then you can compare between.

I suspect that the “Satir interaction model” is actually hanging out attached to at least “Experience of Experience” and “Sensory Experience.” We have attachments at these levels of experience as well, and make meaning that we can sometimes verbalize, but is pre-verbal in the meaning. “Bad thing” as an emotional, visceral response does, indeed exist in a way that the words “bad thing” don’t necessarily capture, and the words are after the fact, in addition to the words and word processes generating experience.

I suspect that having the additional processes going on has a an effect similar to the family of flight control systems in a space shuttle – richer, and thus more robust, and more interesting in what it generates.

Comments? Send me a note.

He called recently wondering why the software we’d developed quit working, and now wouldn’t compile. We spent a half hour discussing this line, that line, adding lines, commenting lines, and getting no where. Since my code compiled, I finally suggested he send me HIS copy of the code. The problem turned out to be a cross communication involving 4 lines of code (located in two different modules).

Somehow, for some reason, as we looked at the code, neither of us put the descriptions of what we saw together with the results Albert described. It wasn’t until I had his code that I found the difficulty. And why was that?

We were congruently communicating. We both wanted the same goal, but the longer we talked about the problem, the more frustrating it became. The Satir Interaction Model wasn’t helping. It turned out that the problem didn’t exist at the language level. It existed in the process of GETTING TO the language level.

Yet Another Model (YAM)

Here’s a model that shows one way of getting from the REAL WORLD, to the language level. I lifted this from Maps, Models, and the Structure of Reality.

Modeling Levels

Like all models, this model deletes, generalizes, and distorts information. I’ll probably blog more about this someday.

The real question we need to consider is: “Does this model provide a useful map of the territory?” To me it does. It shows (some of the) transforms we make between the “World Out There”, finally ending in language. Just so you’re not surprised, each logical level involves its own model, and moving from one logical level to the next one or more processes.

When we add the bi-directional (simplified) Satir Interaction Model, we get a more complete understanding of the problem Albert and I experienced.

Communicaton Model

In our case, the World At Large differed. When moving from his World At Large, Albert deleted information (and we all do). Even though I tried, I couldn’t “language” down his modeling path to understand his World At Large. Once I could see his World At Large, finding the compile problem became much easier. Our worlds were the same.

So the next time you’re talking with someone, and you see the conversation isn’t working, remember:

Even though you’re talking the same language, how you got to the language makes the meaning of the language.

Human systems such as companies, departments, teams, and even individuals experience the same environment boundary problem as they interact with customers, other departments, other teams and each other. The fact that these interfaces continuously change means problems can always arise.

Since information flow is one defining characteristic of a complex adaptive system, having a tool to help untangle interactions run amok will be immensely useful.

The Satir Interaction Model

A simplified version of the Satir Interaction Model looks like

Willem has a better diagram showing how my response becomes your intake. (Go ahead and read the post. I mention it again.)

Willem also mentions speeding through the Interaction Model results in reactions, not responses. And there may be a natural reason for zipping through the steps: your Myers-Briggs Temperament. Jerry Weinberg mentions in QSM 3: Congruent Action

NTs & NFs should use the Rule of Three since they don’t usually actually perform the intake step.

Words Create Meaning in Other People

And we don’t get to choose what that meaning is, they do. We can say something innocuous (to us) and the other person will assign some meaning, significance, and respond in a way that totally surprises us. Jerry said “snow” at a client’s site, and a woman attacked him. They did resolve the issue (using here-now-us).

Rewinding and going over the conversation, preferably with the other person illuminates what happened, when, and where. This can increase understanding and trust.

Debugging

When using the Satir Interaction Model for debugging, an expanded version1,2 can be used:

1. Intake – sensory input, what you see or hear.
2. Meaning – how you interpret what you see or hear.
3. Feelings – what feelings you have about the meaning.
4. Feelings about those Feelings
5. Defenses – projecting, denial, ignoring
6. Rules for commenting – often learned as children at home or church
7. Response – the result (outcome) of all the above

And as Willem notes there needs to be a level of trust and openness before this will work with two people. While not as effective, reflection and discussion with another person may shed light on the interaction.

In Real Time

In spite of all the steps, we go through the entire model in fractions of a second. If you’re engaged in a downward spiraling conversation (and eventually you’ll start to notice this earlier and earlier) you may consider doing the following:

• Ask yourself “What can I do to change how this interaction is happening?”
• Slow things down. Breathe deeply and hold it for a few seconds when it’s your turn to speak.
• Use the rule of three to check your input (especially if you’re intuitive).
• Check your feelings to see if you’re responding congruently.
• Admit to the other person you’re confused by the interaction and ask if they’d like to go “meta” and have a discussion about the discussion.

1 The Satir Model: Family Therapy and Beyond, 1991 Science & Behavior Books, Inc. ISBN 8314-0078-1, Chapter 6
2 Becoming A Technical Leader Chapter 10

Two recent events reminded me about the minefield called communication. A friend requested some feedback which I gladly provided. In fact, I thought I did a pretty good job! Based on the reply I received about the feedback, I knew what got heard, wasn’t what I meant.

About the same time I was reviewing presentation material from a session I presented with Brian Pioreck at the AYE 2001 Conference titled “What’s Wrong With My Staff? How Management Style Affects Organization Potential.” In it, we listed seven barriers to interpersonal communication. Since then I’ve added two more barriers. Right now the list contains the following items:

• Semantics
• Filtering
• Credibility of the sender
• Different frames of reference
• Value judgments
• Communications overload(ing)
• MBTI Type differences
• Intake modalities
• Bandwidth

So what happened in my feedback situation? First, the feedback happened via email, a very bandwidth constrained channel. I attempted humor anyway, which involved different reference frames. I know we have reasonably different MBTI preferences. Fortunately my credibility was sufficiently high that the other person chose not to ignore my feedback, but instead opened the opportunity for me to get some feedback on my feedback. We used the Satir Interaction Model to unravel the communication snarl.

The Satir Interaction Model

The Satir Interaction Model provides a framework to organize our thoughts about how communication occurs. The model looks like:

First, we take in information. This could be reading email, hearing words spoken, or any other activity where we notice something in our environment. Next we decide, “What does this mean?” Asking “What three different meanings could this have?” helps create a space so we have time to consider possible different meanings. And then “So what?” Is this of significance? If we feel the interaction is significant, we can choose to respond.

This simple representation suffices for most interactions. Jerry Weinberg covers the Satir Interaction Model in greater detail in Becoming A Technical Leader.

Got Something to Say?

How do you untangle messy communications?
What additional communication barriers can you think of?

Send me an email and let me know.

I’ll never forget that morning even though it happened a quarter of a century ago.   I was a programmer helping start up a new factory, and things had been going OK.  Not great, but OK.  I decided that morning on the way to the factory I was going to stay calm and not let anyone “get to me”.  Right.

Karla, the process engineer descended with a litany of things that were wrong before I completely cleared the door into the control room.  Before Karla could finish, the control room operators started interrupting with needs that had to be addressed before we could start the day’s trial production.  Did I lose my implacable calm?  Faster than a snow ball melts in North Carolina on the Fourth of July.

What I didn’t understand at the time is that models governed my behavior.  Unlike the models we were using to create the control software, these models were hidden from my view.  Later in my career I started finding the tools that would help expose these implicit models, and help me make changes that would amplify my effectiveness.

Manifest Models

Modeling is an integral part of our daily lives and is the way by which we transform the chaotic into the structured. – Kostere, Malatesta

“Modeling” is the name we give to the activity of organizing events into patterns, and patterns into structures.  These structures are referred to as “models”.

Some models are based on our physical environment.  The model we use for time is based on the earth’s motion in space.  We call a day one rotation on its axis.  A year is one revolution of the earth around the sun. Sir Isaac Newton defined four laws which model motion in the 17^th century that remain largely intact today.

Using instruments, we measure the events that form the basis of physical models.  As we improve our instruments, we improve our understanding of events, then patterns of events, then what pattern changes mean to the overall model.  We soon discover that models that adequately describe events at one level, fail at some other level and need to be replaced.  For instance, at a given level we replace the certainty of Newton with the un-certainty of Heisenberg.

Models to automate manufacturing processes or describe work as it flows through an organization are explicitly built.  I worked on a project where the engineering firm built a scale model of the electrical cogeneration plant, complete with all the pipes 2” and larger.  This model was used in the bidding, construction, and final acceptance of the plant.  A different r project didn’t correctly model the sample flow through the Quality Laboratory.  Actions were occurring at the wrong time or location for where the samples were in the analytical process.  The project was a disaster until the software model was corrected to reflect the physical process.

Environmental and expressly built models are manifest models.  We build these models by observing events, noticing patterns, and organizing the patterns into models.  While a model should account for what has happened, the real power of a model is its ability to predict what will happen given a set of input conditions.  A model’s prediction ability is based on how well it corresponds to its domain, and its ability to deal with the inputs.

We can play “what if” games.  The results of the “what if” games then feed back into our model definition.  We can examine the events to verify we understand them correctly.  Maybe the model needs adjustments.

Another reason to study manifest models is we use the same actions to create implicit models.  Unlike manifest models, we don’t explicitly build implicit models.  Yet understanding our implicit models provides the opportunities for personal growth, improved inter-personal relationships, and the leverage for creating new realities.

Implicit Models

We start building implicit models when we’re born. Take the example of disappointed child and harried parent at the grocery store.  The child wails and screams.  The parent unwilling to deal with a “scene” acquiesces to the child and gives the child get what they want. After this happens a few times, pattern forms, and eventually a model of “If I scream and yell, I get what I want.”  Now imagine this child as a manager who’s project is late, bug ridden, and over budget.  Quess how the manager might respond to the situation?

Like manifest models, implicit models organize our experience.  These models guide our behavior. Our new experiences tend to validate the system which in turn is used to predict the result of future experiences, which in turn validates, which in turn predicts …  The difference between manifest and implicit models is we are generally not aware of implicit models.

This suggests that we take actions, have interpersonal relationships, and interact with our reality in an “auto-pilot” mode.  This is not necessarily bad.  In today’s world, it is not possible to deal with every datum, examine every event, and ponder each interaction.  Using models allows us to respond with appropriate behavior without the need of exploring all the possibilities available.

While generating behavior that is appropriate, implicit models limit our available responses for a given event.  Input events similar to previous evetns will be filtered, processed, and responded to without regard to changes in the experience, changes in ourselves, or changes in the environment.  Failing to take these changes into account can create inappropriate behavior and inter-personal interactions that are out of balance.

In extreme cases, implicit models exist as “survival rules” or self-fulfilling prophecies.  When these models exist, our behavior becomes incongruent.  Valid input is ignored. Our actions are single minded, and the results of our actions are the opposite of what we actually would like to have happen.

How do we build these models we use to interface with the rest of the world?

Building Models²

Model – a small copy or imitation of an existing object. Webster’s New World Dictionary

We abstract our experience and condense it into a models.  The models are simpler than our experience.  This reduces the data we need to process.  Properly created models are useful for ordering information, understanding events and predicting the future.

There are four basic modeling methods:

1. Deletion
2. Construction
3. Distortion
4. Generalization

Deletion leaves information out of the model.  If we don’t remove some of the information, we’re doing all the processing and work, which defeats the purpose of creating models.  We delete information based on our interests, energy level and experience.

Construction is deletion’s compliment.  We put information into our model that wasn’t in the original experience. I once spent an afternoon with a tool that was smart enough to tell me I was doing something wrong, but not smart enough to tell me what.  It turned out the problem was a loop index declared as [_i], but used in the code as [i].  I was glad to find it, even though I wasn’t sure if my problem was mentally deleting the “_” in the declaration, or adding the “_” to the code.

Distortion is blending experiences, (de)emphasizing some parts, or otherwise altering the original experience. Distortion is the basis of creativity as well as paranoia.¹

Generalization is creating a model from one experience and using it to represent an entire group of similar experiences. The potential problem is the single instance may not be truly representative of the entire group.

So how do we interact with our world, process the experiences, and end up with implicit models?  The process involves input filters, abstracting, and interacting with our environment.

Getting the Experience

… there is an irreducible difference between the world and our experience of it.  We as human beings do not operate directly on the world.  Each of us creates a representation of the world in which we live that is, we create a map or model which we use to generate our behavior. Our representation of the world determines to a large degree what our experience of the world will be, how we will perceive the world, what choices we will see available to us as we live in the world. Bandler and Grinder, The Structure of Magic.

Input Filters³

I know you think you understand what I said, but I’m not sure you understand that what you heard is not what I meant. – Anon.

Let’s agree there is a physical world.  We can touch, see, hear, smell, and taste things in this world.  These senses, which can be very developed, have limits.  We only see the “white light” part of the electromagnetic spectrum.  Infrared and ultra-violet are beyond our visual limits.  Our hearing is limited to 20 – 20,000 Hz.  Many animals, including Sarah (my German Shepard) can detect sound beyond this frequency range.  So the first type of input filters is neurological based.  These filters, are common to Homo sapiens, and start the process of permuting the physical world into a map (or model) of the physical world.

In addition to existing in a physical world, we exist in a social world.  Initially our biological family comprises this world. As we get older, our social world expands to include playmates, classroom friends, and work relationships.  During this socialization process, we learn language, accepted ways of perceiving, and other socially agreed upon “truths”.  Language modifies our world mental model based on how we abstract from the sensory experience. Common “truths” might include:

• Boys are better at math.
• Girls are better at cooking.
• Programmers are introverts.

These social filters move our mental models further from the physical world.  They are common not to all homosapiens, but to a group of homosapiens.  Unlike neurological filters that are essentially unchangeable, social filters are learned, new filters can be learned, and old filters can be “un”-learned.

Neurological filters define us as a species.  Social filters define us as a culture.  Our personal history defines us uniquely, and moves our mental model furthest from the physical world.  None of us has the exact same set of experiences. Therefore none of us has exactly the same mental world model.  The model differences are based on our interests, habits, likes, dislikes, and rules for behavior.  Like social filters, we have the ability to change these parts of our models.

Levels of Abstraction

A map is not the territory it represents, but, if correct, it has a similar structure to the territory, which accounts for its usefulness. – A. Korzybski, Science & Sanity, 5^th Ed., p 58

Perhaps the most profound cause of differences in our mental models comes from how we abstract information from the physical world.  Korzybski identifies “at least three different levels of abstractions: the seen, experienced, lower order abstractions (un-speakable); then the descriptive level, and finally, the inferential levels.”⁴ It is in the third order abstraction (inferential levels) area that individual characteristics have the most impact.  Even though two people see the same event in the physical world, by the time the final abstracting is complete, the mental model of the event may be completely different.

Another way of viewing the abstraction process is looking at the modeling levels that separate us from the physical world.³ Our sensory experiences, how we individually experience the sensory experience (apply our likes, dislikes, etc), and what expressions are available in our language all affect our mental world model.

Each of these levels is meta- to the modeling level that is the next level below it.  Without careful inspection of the nature, assumptions and structure of each level, differences between the physical world and our implicit models of that world aggregate and compound.

Language
Experience of ExperienceSensory
Experience
Physical World

By the time we talk about an experience, we’re three levels of filtering and abstracting from the actual experience.  Some useful techniques to help untangle confusion are the Satir Interaction Model⁵ and the Inference Ladder⁶.

Interacting With Our Environment

Our interaction with our environment is not a one-way conduit.  Our models are built by abstracting information from the environment using modeling methods.  These models then form our reality, which is the basis for our actions.  Our actions in turn affect our environment.  This in turn affects our models.  The feedback between our models and our environment can either reinforce (agree with) or balance (disagree with) our mental models.  The selection between reinforcing and balancing feedback is determined by how we choose to view the feedback.

Extra special events can have an impact on our mental models.  I once gave a presentation that received less than glowing reviews.  As I considered the event, how much significance did I place in the data?  Was it a statistical “blip” that could be safely ignored?  If so, I could keep my model of my presentation as “sterling” and reinforce the model by discounting the input.  Or I could choose to accept the input as valid and modify at least the presentation, if not my delivery style.  Of course, I could choose to modify both.

The risk in using special events (or data) to build or modify models is the tendency towards using construction, and creating a model that doesn’t fit the general class that the event belongs to.  This can be avoided by looking at the events (or data) over time.  This allows a series of events to regress towards their normal value.

Looking at events over time allows us to consider the time frame.  We learn about simple cause and effect in school. In the interests of finishing the labs on time, cause and effect are usually closely coupled in time.  For some systems this is a valid time frame.  Other systems, especially systems with large numbers of people, the time between cause and effect can be quite long.  Consider when events happen, and whether or not that makes sense if you decide to use them to modify your mental models.

Another trap in acquiring information from our environment is one-sided events.  This is gathering input in such a way that no matter what happens, it results in reinforcing our mental models.  This would be like the person who “misbehaves” in meetings to get attention.  When considering using an event, ask yourself, “Does this event reinforce my mental model?”, and then “Does the opposite of this event also support my mental model?”  If both answers are yes, you are taking a single view of the event.

It usually takes some kind of a crisis to point out that a model is not working. If we continue to use a model that is no longer working, we create incongruent interactions.  We do or say things that create negative feelings between us and the people we’re interacting with, or generate the opposite results of what we really want.  These negative and opposite reactions eventually result in crisisses of varying magnitudes.  As Jerry Weinberg says, “A crisis is simply the end of an illusion.”

Explicitly Building Implicit Models

“We want a set of mental models that are realistic and useful, and provide ourselves and others with the greatest possible happiness and well-being. We can do this by looking dispassionately at our mental models, seeing them as a system and choosing what models to adopt, rather than holding those we already have regardless.” – O’Connor & McDermott

Coming to the end of an illusion offers us a chance to reconsider the events, reorganize the patterns, and reconstruct our models to generate a different outcome.  To do this, we need to be aware of the models we use, and how we would like to change existing models or add new ones.

Identifying Models in Action

There are at least three ways to determine when a non-working model is in action:

1. Incongruent interpersonal actions.  This is the domain of dysfunctional groups such as software development teams, and dysfunction between groups (development and testing).  While in theory all are striving to the same goal, blaming, placating, and super-reasonable acts are the avenue of action.
2. Incongruent intrapersonal feelings.  These are the “I’ll just sit here and quietly stew” feelings.  Coming home from a recent trip, my mental model of when to stop for gas didn’t agree with the driver’s.  I just sat there quietly stewing.
3. Language⁷

• Judgments are authoritative statements about second order reality, the world of meaning, not physical fact.
• Absolute words such as “ought”, “should”, “must”, and “cannot”.
• Universal words such “all”, “every”, “never”.

When you notice these events (or words), you can be sure mental models are in play, and have a choice to accept or to change your mental models.

Modifying Mental Models

Our mental models originally made our lives better.  They helped organize information, allowed us to explain events, and predict the future results.  Therefore the first action to take is to ask yourself, “What does this model get me?”  Once you understand the plus side, you can determine if you want to change your mental model.

If you decide that you would like a different outcome than what your current model is providing, continue by determining what sort of an outcome you would like to have. Outcomes should be a positive statement.  “Being more centered in my relationships ” is an positive outcome that can be expressed in terms of feelings.  “Not fighting with my team-mates” is a negative expression. Progress for (not) negative goals is more difficult to verify.  Perhaps you can find an outcome that keeps the benefits of the current model and add the benefits of the new model.

Once a new outcome is chosen, destabilize the current model.  If incongruence helped identify the model, the energy created may be enough to start the migration to the new model.  You can use questions to help with the change.  Question your assumptions about the model, the meaning of the model, or for what else you might be able to use the new model.

Once you’ve started the movement toward a new model, be sure to check the environment for feedback.  As you stay aware of regression, time-focus and one-sided events, consider how you use the feedback to reinforce or balance the new model.  Our models for a system, and we can modify this system to create more fulfilled lives.

¹ The Art of Systems Thinking, Joseph O’Connor & Ian McDermott ©1997, pg 69
² This section draws on The Structure of Magic, Bandler and Grinder, ©1975  pp 8 – 13 Experience As An Active Process
³ Maps, Models, and the Structure of Reality, Kim Kostere, Linda Malatesta ©1990,  pp 6 – 13
⁴ In Science And Sanity (5^th Ed.), Alfred Korzybski, ©1994, pg 444
⁵For an excellent presentation on the Satir Interaction Model see Quality Software Management, Vol 2, First Order Measurement by Jerry Weinberg.
⁶ The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook, Peter Senge et al., ©1994, pg 242
⁷ The Art of Systems Thinking, op cit pg 106

from The Art of Systems Thinking

How to have Rigid, Limiting Mental Models

1.   Insist that your ideas are how reality ‘really’ is.
2.   Have a narrow set of interests to ensure you delete a lot of experiences.
3.  Do not tolerate ambiguity; jump to conclusions as fast as possible.
4.  Whenever people and events do not behave as you expect, have a fund of creative explanations.
5.  Use lots of modal operators and never question them.
6.  Use many universals and do not admit exceptions.
7.  Be quick to generalize from one example.
8.  Set up plenty of one-sided, unfocused experiences to provide evidence for your ideas.
9.  Blame failures on individuals (don’t forget yourself).
10.  Think in straight lines of cause and effect.
11. Never by curious.
12. Never update your beliefs in the light of experience.

How to have Systemic Mental Models

1.   Admit your mental models are your best guess at the moment and be on the lookout for better ones.
2.   Have wide interests.
3.  Be comfortable with ambiguity.
4.  Be curious about, and pay particular attention to, experiences that seem to contradict your mental models.
5.  Have a wide time horizon to look for feedback.
6.  When confronted with a problem, look at the assumptions you are making about the situation as well as the situation itself.
7.  Look for relationships, how events fit together.
8.  Look for loops and circles of cause and effect, the effect of one cause being the cause of another effect.

I remember when I first started solving problems for a living. I would leap down the stairs three at a time, race to the computer room, and stare at the line printer (yes, it was that long ago) trying to determine what had happened, and what to do about it. I couldn’t possibly slow down. I had to “Just Do It!” They were depending on me. Of course, by the time I was notified, the problem had already happened, and there wasn’t anything I could do to turn back the hands of time. So eventually, I went down the stairs one at a time, walked to the computer, and was calm and composed when I started investigating the problem.

Now that I spend time working with people, the habit of “Don’t Just Do Something, Stand There” serves me well. But for me, “standing there” is an active event. I use this time to determine what is happening, how it is happening, and the best course of action before diving in. To help me with this effort, I use the following techniques:

Gather Some Information

The first activity is gathering information. Asking open-ended questions keeps me involved in what’s happening while I’m standing there. Three of my favorite questions are:

1. How did you (we) come to be here?
2. How do you feel about it?
3. What would you like to have happen?

These questions can be answered on many levels. You might hear the history of actions. Maybe you’ll hear about the decisions and personalities involved. Another possible response is a story of emotional highs and lows. The response you get will tell you about the corporate culture. Superficial responses indicate a closed culture that doesn’t tolerate free thinking very well. An open, honest, well-balanced response indicates a safe culture where individuals are encouraged to think and speak freely.

As I gather information, I try to use as many of my senses as possible. As I listen, I watch and see if the body language, facial expressions, and setting agree with the words. Is the information coherent? Do I have enough information, or do I need more? Common problems with information gathering involve getting too little information or getting too much.

Decide What the Information Means

The next activity as I stand there is to figure out what the information I’ve gathered means. It’s probable that the message I’ve received is not exactly the message that was sent. This is because, as Bandler and Grinder said in <em>The Structure of Magic,</em> “there is an irreducible difference between the world and our experience of it. We as human beings do not operate directly on the world. Each of us creates a representation of the world in which we live, that is, we create a map or model which we use to generate our behavior.” In other words, <em>there is always some interpretation going on.</em>

To help improve the odds of getting the right message, I like to use Jerry Weinberg’s Rule of Three. The Rule of Three states: “If I can’t think of at least three different interpretations of what I received, I haven’t thought enough about what it might mean.” Then of the three, I can select the interpretation that seems to best fit the situation at hand.

For example, in reviewing project progress, I sometimes hear, “I thought you were going to do that.” Three possible interpretations (among many others) might be:

1. It wasn’t clear who was going to do this task.
2. You’re right, I’m wrong, and I’ll get right on it!
3. I am a bad person because I didn’t do what you thought I was going to do.

Evaluate the Significance of the Interpretation

This raises the significance question. How do I feel about the interpretation I select? Even though the interaction I’m working on is external, how I approach the matter is influenced by my feelings and world model. Additionally, the significance I associate with the selected interpretation may not have any relationship to the significance assigned by others.

When determining the significance of my interpretation, a wonderful check is “What have I seen or heard that makes me feel this is the best interpretation?” This data question serves as a check on my processing, and allows another view of what I feel is happening.

Now Do Something

After getting information, selecting a meaning for it, and determining its significance, I’m ready to make a response. I’ve found that following these steps keeps me from jumping the gun and doing things before I’ve fully processed the situation.

How long should this “standing there” take? The quick answer is “It all depends.” In actual practice, it doesn’t take long. And the time spent is redeemed by the increased effectiveness of my work. My mother was right. She always told me, “Before you do something in haste, you should count to ten.” Now you know what I do while I’m counting!