cognition & Mental Models

2. • What is Cognition
• Cognition & Organizational Change
• Factors Affecting
• Mental Models
• Organization & Mental Models

3. • Cognition refers to a range of high-level
brain functions, including the ability to learn
and remember information; organize, plan
and problem-solve; focus, maintain and
shift attention as necessary; understand and
use language; accurately perceive the
environment; and perform calculations.

4. • Cognition in change management
implies knowing when to launch change in
an organization .
• The way in which a manager collects
interprets information about the world
outside the organization shapes his
knowledge about change.

5. • The commonly observed phenomenon
whereby employees and managers fail to
update and revise their understanding of a
situation when that situation changes, a
phenomenon that acts as a psychological
barrier to organizational change.

6. • Organizational factors
• Personal or human factors

7. Mental Models

8. • Mental Model is an explanation of
someone's thought process about how
something works in the real world.
• It is deeply embedded assumptions &
generalizations we all carry regarding how
the world works and our own actions .

9. • Mental models are subtle but powerful.
Subtle, because we usually are unaware of
their effect. Powerful, because they
determine what we pay attention to, and
therefore what we do.
• Mental models are strongly conservative:
left unchallenged, they will cause us to see
what we have always seen: the same needs,
the same opportunities, the same results.

10. • Organizations have many mental models. In
non-profits, mental models are likely to be
built around the people served (“we serve the
poorest of the poor”),
• around the role of the organization (“we are
the agency of last resort” or “if we don’t
provide a service, no one else will”), and
• around the nature of the activities performed
by the organization (“we are advocates for
change”).

11. • Behind every plan lies a gaggle of mental models,
unconsciously shaping our decisions: about who
will be served, what issues will be addressed, what
actions we will permit ourselves to take, what
outcomes are desirable, and what standards we will
use to determine effectiveness.
• What many organizations call “planning” is simply a
projection of their current mental models into the
future
• Because mental models “limit us to familiar ways of
thinking and acting,” every planning procedure
must, at some point, expose and challenge the
organization’s mental models.

12. • These mental models can serves as powerful
constraints in an organization’s ability to
gain new sight & innovations .
• These are important to consider and bring to
surface because they shape how we
understand ourselves, other people, and the
situations we face.