Old dogs...new tricks!

Happy Thanksgiving weekend! Though I am guessing your holiday weekend was very different in 2020 than in years past, I hope you still found time to share what you are grateful for with others. As I completed the final reading of “Streetlights and Shadows” for the class I’m helping with at University of Washington, I want to share how grateful I am for Professor Mark Haselkorn giving me the opportunity to participate in his class. While I could comment on how much I have learned this semester, the last few chapters of the book also highlighted how important it is to unlearn and re-learn.

Gary Klein shares nine different strategies for abandoning old mental models and building new ones based upon changing conditions, new information and incremental learnings. The idea is to overcome your own fixations on a certain belief and be open to new perspectives. Or to help others make adjustments to their own fixed mindsets. I’ll share a few of my own thoughts for each of the nine different strategies.

What evidence would it take to change your mind?

When I was young, someone told me that hot water would freeze faster (when making ice cubes) than cold water. I believed that person for a while but, over time, it just did not make sense to me. I conducted my own experiment. I put two ice cube trays in the freezer at the same time – one with hot water and one with cold water. No surprises here…the evidence was clear that cold water froze faster than hot water. Later, in high school chemistry, I learn the basic equations behind thermodynamics – providing even more evidence to change my original mindset.

Pay attention to mounting contradictory evidence

The next strategy is to consider the volume and quantity of evidence to consider abandoning your existing mental model. Consider the debates surrounding climate change. In 2014, there was a survey of thousands of scientific papers about climate change. And over 97% of those papers demonstrated clearly that humans are the major contributor to climate change. Does that mean they are 100% correct? Not at all. But I hope those who don’t believe in climate change would seriously consider the voluminous facts and data available to reconsider their perspective.

Comparable cases

Explore what other examples might exist. The Seattle Seahawks are playing football on Monday Night. Over the past few years, the announcers would say that Seattle with Russell Wilson at quarterback “usually win when they are on national television”. With the advent of NFL games on Thursday and Sunday nights, this is not always the case (sadly) as it is easy to compare their record on those evenings as well (not as many wins). Though I’m a long-time Chicago Bears fan, I still wanted to believe the Seahawks would not lose a nationally televised game. Oh well.

Outside perspective

Another strategy is to bring in someone from the outside with a totally different perspective. Growing up, this usually amounted to one of my parents coming in as the “referee” during a debate between my brother and me. In fact, Professor Haselkorn has asked me to play this role during class. His perspective and approach to leading the class is more academic, and he’s asked me to share stories and lessons learned from the business world to provide some outside perspective. Not only did I frequently bring an outside perspective to the class. But I am also grateful to have an academic (outside) perspective to reshape many of my own business viewpoints.

Use exercises and simulations to prepare learners to absorb feedback

Growing up, I played a lot of Microsoft’s “Flight Simulator”. It was a blast for me to “fly” planes around the city of Chicago and try to land safely at Meigs Field along Lake Michigan. As an adult working with major aerospace companies like Boeing, I had an opportunity to see how pilots use real life simulators to practice flying a Boeing 787 or the Space Shuttle. Experimenting with exercises and simulations, well in advance of actual flight time, is a great way to re-learn mental models to improve flight safety and improve the ability to react to feedback on very different, complex situations.

Use of analogies and metaphors

The example in the book is a great one with gravity and force. High school students understood how gravity in the downward direction. But they were skeptical that a table applies the same amount of upward pressure on the book that was lying on the table. Their teacher asked them to imagine holding the book with their hands and think about that upward pressure. Or to consider a book on a spring and how the spring is pressing upward on the book. Whether through visualization or actual practice, analogies and metaphors are useful tools to help unlearn older mental models.

Logical competitor sets

This method is used frequently in science. It is meant to directly challenge your own assumptions and mental models. In a less than scientific manner, I am going through this right now with coffee.  I do not like the taste of coffee. Any coffee. And my “competitor sets” are my many friends who cannot live without their daily coffee. After too many years of avoiding coffee, I have been trying various coffee suggestions from friends. And no surprise to them, I have discovered there are a few coffees I like. I have finally unlearned that “all coffee tastes horrible” and re-learned there are a few coffees that taste good (especially after adding creamers and sugar and other stuff…!).

Crystal Ball method

This method is useful if you are willing to challenge yourself to come up with alternative options to the same set of facts. The crystal ball shows that your original explanation for a certain set of facts is wrong…and you need to come up with a brand-new explanation. There are some classic opening sequences in chess matches. I use this “what if” method to constantly challenge my initial reaction to my opponent’s opening moves – since he usually alters the opening sequences intentionally to mislead me. The same first three moves might look like the “same set of facts”, but I would lose every game if I assumed the same explanation was behind those facts every time.

Simply be curious when we find anomalies

Have you ever tried to explain something complex to a young child? He or she might ask the question “Why?” to your explanation. And then “Why?” again to that explanation. In consulting, we have used the “Five Why’s?” as a method to be curious and explore any situation more deeply. Do not simply dismiss some anomalies to your own mental models. Be curious and explore further to challenge yourself and re-learn.

And while my opening gratefulness was directed to Professor Mark Haselkorn, I would love to extend my thanks and appreciation to the many undergraduate and graduate students I have met over the years working with Mark. The questions and interactions have been great. There are numerous mental models I’ve unlearned and re-learned in the past few years. 

Thanks again for teaching this proverbial old dog some new tricks!