Giving Compass' Take:

• New Profit chares Julie Sweetland's insights from the Shifting Mental Models to Advance Systems Change webinar.

• How can funders support systems change work with this advice in mind? 

• Read about the essential components of systems change work. 

Strategic advantage in shifting a system begins with both understanding existing mental models around the issue you are involved with, and figuring out how to un-stick the most prominent mental models that impede change.

Easier said than done. By way of example, Julie shared three mental models that are embedded in U.S. culture and stand in the way of progress on a host of social and environmental issues:

  1. Individualism: This is the assumption that problems (in particular, social problems) are actually caused at the individual level, vs societal level.  The frame also assumes that solutions to problems should occur at the level of individual choice or behavior. For instance, in substance abuse and prevention, people think the consequences of this problem are severe – but many see the problem as severe mostly for those who are experiencing the problem (e.g. those who are addicted), not for society as a whole.
  2. Us vs. Them: This is the assumption that another social group or another category of experience is hermetically sealed from our own.  An example of this is viewing the economy and economic progress as different or opposite from the environment. Often this “us vs. them” mental model comes with a built-in bias that the other group – the “them” – possesses the deficit, or is problematic in some ways.
  3. Fatalism: This is the assumption that the problem is so big, so dire, the players so incompetent or self-interested that the issue cannot be fixed.  Needless to say, as the U.S. becomes more polarized, many people's sense of fatalism on the rise.

These three mental models, according to FrameWorks, shape public thinking on a host of social and environmental issues and are barriers to productive conversations that can lead to collective understanding and decision making regarding solutions.  In effect, these mental models are a principle underlying cause that prevents us from getting the stuck unstuck.

OK, so now we’re ready to share FrameWorks’ perspective on what does work to shift and un-stick mental models:

  1. Shift people’s attention to a more productive, more accurate, fuller, and conceptually more robust mental model. A technique for redirecting attention is to build a concept and an explanation. This can be done through explanatory change as in “... this leads to that, which leads to that.” Turn the example into a compelling story of what happened, and why, so that people can see both the logic line and the overall coherence of a different way of approaching the issue.
  2. Sometimes this story-line explanation can be enhanced by a carefully chosen “explanatory metaphor” that gives people a more apt comparison that they can wrap their mind around. FrameWorks suggests that these should be simple metaphors people can call up quickly – blankets, toasters, cars or gardens.  Explained, Julie, “You’re basically pulling in the mental models of the other comparison, and using that to help people think through the issue.”

Read the full article about changing mental models at New Profit.