Culture (Collective Mental Model)
Culture is a collective mental model that evolves from shared experiences within a group, providing stability and meaning but also risking rigidity when its premises become absolute truths.
THE IDEA
Culture
Culture can be understood as a collective mental model.
"Here, the decisions are taken by consensus." “Here we buy from the supplier who has the best prices.” “Here, the men go out to work while the women stay inside.” “Here, the women are independent and make their own lives.” “Nature is a resource to be used by man.” “Nature is sacred, and man's job is to preserve it.”
Each of these phrases illustrates a cultural premise. Shared ideas help a group interpret events and decide how to act.
Within any group (families, professions, organizations, industries, nations), collective mental models evolve based on shared experiences. Throughout its history, group members must face challenges. In response, they develop a habitual way (in the sense given by Bateson) of interpreting situations and taking action. This becomes a part of the collective mental model and passes from generation to generation as the "knowledge" of the group. Over time, members may forget the experiences that produced a rule and begin treating it as an absolute truth. Instead of being "the way in which our group has effectively responded to the challenges of the past," one now has "the only correct way of responding to the challenges of the present and the future."
Shared models provide stability and let a group draw on past experience. They can also limit which possibilities its members consider. During rapid change, a familiar response may persist after the conditions that made it useful have disappeared. Challenging those beliefs can create anxiety and resistance, making them difficult to revise.
When to use it
A company with a hierarchical culture may struggle to implement agile practices that require flat decision-making; understanding the cultural mental model helps design change strategies.
When expanding into a new country, a business must recognize and adapt to local cultural mental models to avoid missteps in marketing, negotiation, and management.
Educators can examine the cultural premises embedded in their curriculum to ensure they prepare students for a diverse and changing world rather than perpetuating outdated norms.
A family or community facing a crisis may rely on deep-seated cultural mental models that either help or hinder adaptive responses; identifying these can guide support efforts.
FROM THEORY TO EVERYDAY LIFE
In practice
Decision by consensus
In some cultures, decisions are taken by consensus, reflecting a collective mental model that values agreement and shared input over individual authority.
Supplier selection based solely on price
A company's culture may assume that the best supplier is always the cheapest, ignoring quality or relationship factors, illustrating a cultural premise that has become an unquestioned truth.
A MOMENT TO REFLECT
Put it to work.
What cultural assumptions in your organization might be limiting innovation or adaptability?
Can you identify a collective mental model in your community that has lost its experiential root and become an absolute truth?
In what ways does your culture preserve stability but resist necessary change, and how can you gently challenge those presuppositions?
CONTINUE THE CONVERSATION
Source texts
- Thinking in Systems and Mental Models Think Like a Super Thinker (Dawson, Marcus P)