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The Importance of Mental Models

Summary

This episode explores the concept of mental models as powerful frameworks for thinking and problem-solving. The host explains that mental models are ways of thinking within limited fields that help us understand the world, make better decisions, and communicate more effectively with others.

Mental models became popular in the business world through Charlie Munger, who emphasized the importance of having multiple mental models from different disciplines rather than relying on just one field of expertise. The episode discusses how understanding various mental models makes us more agile in understanding the world and solving problems across different domains.

The host provides examples of mental models from different fields, such as divide-and-conquer algorithms from programming, supply and demand from economics, and different programming paradigms like functional and object-oriented programming. These models can be applied beyond their original contexts to various life situations.

By being aware of our own mental models and recognizing those of others, we can separate ourselves from limited perspectives, solve problems more effectively, and improve communication with coworkers and customers. The episode emphasizes that while there are many mental models to learn, focusing on the most important ones can significantly enhance our thinking and decision-making capabilities.

Recommendations

Books

  • Charlie Munger’s USC Business School speech — Referenced as the source that popularized mental models in business - Munger emphasized needing multiple mental models from different disciplines to be successful.

People

  • Charlie Munger — Warren Buffett’s business partner who popularized mental models in the business world through his 1994 USC Business School speech about needing multiple mental models for success.

Products

  • Mad Monk Tea — Loose leaf tea company offering tea of the month club and brewing supplies, promoted as a premium tea option with a discount code for listeners.

Tools

  • WooCommerce — E-commerce platform that powers nearly 30% of online stores, built on WordPress with customizable features, data ownership, and easy setup process mentioned as a sponsor.

Topic Timeline

  • 00:00:00 — Introduction to decision-making and cognitive frameworks — The episode begins by discussing how we make daily decisions, referencing previous discussions about heuristics, bias, and how our brains tend to be lazy and compress information. The host introduces the concept that will encompass all these ideas - mental models - and emphasizes their all-encompassing importance for everyone’s career and life.
  • 00:03:12 — Defining mental models and their importance — The host formally introduces mental models as the central topic, describing them as ways of thinking in limited fields. He explains that mental models cover bias, lazy brain thinking, and differing perceptions. The discussion highlights how mental models became popular in business through Charlie Munger, who emphasized the need for multiple mental models from different disciplines to be successful.
  • 00:07:39 — Practical benefits of understanding mental models — This section explores why recognizing mental models is powerful. By understanding our own mental models, we can separate ourselves from them and see problems in new ways. Recognizing others’ mental models helps improve communication with coworkers and understanding customers’ perspectives, which can increase the effectiveness of products and services we provide.
  • 00:09:34 — Examples of mental models from different fields — The host provides concrete examples of mental models, starting with divide-and-conquer algorithms from programming that can be applied to organizing tasks or solving problems in everyday life. Other examples include functional vs. object-oriented programming paradigms and supply-demand models from economics. The episode emphasizes how learning models from various disciplines enhances problem-solving capabilities across different contexts.
  • 00:12:38 — Conclusion and future directions — The episode wraps up by summarizing the discussion on mental models and promising future episodes that will explore specific mental models in more detail. The host encourages listeners to subscribe for upcoming content and thanks the sponsors while reinforcing the practical value of understanding and applying mental models in professional and personal contexts.

Episode Info

  • Podcast: Developer Tea
  • Author: Jonathan Cutrell
  • Category: Technology Business Careers Society & Culture
  • Published: 2018-02-23T10:00:00Z
  • Duration: 00:14:08

References

Podcast Info

Transcript

[00:00:00] how is it that we make so many decisions every day on the show in the past we’ve talked about

[00:00:11] heuristics and we’ve talked about bias and we’ve also talked about how our brains are kind of lazy

[00:00:18] over time they learn to kind of compress information and we have to force them kind of

[00:00:25] kick them into gear manually sometimes sometimes that’s a simple thing like taking a new route to

[00:00:33] work but other times it seems a little bit more difficult we’re going to talk about something that

[00:00:39] kind of encompasses all of this information in today’s episode and i’m really excited about this

[00:00:44] topic because what we’re going to talk about today will truly kind of apply to everyone first

[00:00:51] of all but it’ll apply to everything that you ever do in your career and i’m not

[00:00:55] overstating this i’m not exaggerating it it is actually truly all encompassing that’s

[00:01:01] the topic that we’re talking about today is all-encompassing my name is jonathan cuttrell

[00:01:05] you’re listening to developer t my goal on this show is to help driven developers hopefully you

[00:01:10] are a driven developer to help driven developers connect to their career purpose so they can turn

[00:01:16] around and do good work do better work right actually produce quality things uh or you know

[00:01:24] actually do quality work and you know and i’m not overstating this i’m not exaggerating it it is actually

[00:01:25] research, build positive relationships with their co-workers or with the people that use the

[00:01:31] products that they create or whoever they’re servicing. So that’s really the goal is to kind

[00:01:37] of better the environment that developers are cultivating. And we do that by connecting you

[00:01:44] to your career purpose. But going beyond that, really kind of helping you understand the pathway

[00:01:50] to better thinking, the pathway to continuous improvement, to lifelong learning. And so we

[00:01:59] want to uncover as much of that as we can on this show. So today’s episode, I’m really excited about

[00:02:04] it because even though it’s a very simple topic on the face of it, it really does encompass all

[00:02:11] of these things that we’ve talked about so many times on the show. Before we jump in, I do want

[00:02:15] to talk about something I wish that everyone would try at least once in their lives. It’s a very

[00:02:20] simple thing. It’s loose leaf tea. We are not actually a tea show. I assume that a lot of you

[00:02:28] do get a cup of tea every once in a while when you listen to the show. And there’s not a better

[00:02:33] way to do tea than to do it with loose leaf tea. And you can get premium tea right now from Mad

[00:02:42] Monk Tea for 15% off if you use the code developer tea. How many times can we say the word tea in one

[00:02:48] episode? But truly, this is

[00:02:50] a very simple thing. It’s loose leaf tea. We are not actually a tea show. I assume that a lot of you

[00:02:50] such a good product. They have all of the stuff that you need, by the way, to brew loose leaf tea

[00:02:56] right there in their store, and it’s all affordable. Of course, they have a tea of the

[00:03:01] month club. Go and check that out. Head over to madmonktea.com and remember the code developer

[00:03:06] tea at checkout for that 15% off. Thank you to Mad Monk Tea for partnering with developer tea.

[00:03:12] So we’re talking today about this thing that kind of all encompassing concept that it

[00:03:20] covers bias. It covers the lazy brain. It covers differing perceptions. And this concept is the

[00:03:28] mental model. Mental models. This is such a huge topic. It’s so important to understand this,

[00:03:36] at least from an outside perspective, understand what it means to have a mental model. A mental

[00:03:42] model is a way of thinking in a limited field. That’s the way I’m going to describe it on today’s

[00:03:49] episode.

[00:03:50] I want you to go and do some research on your own once we’ve gone past this episode, because

[00:03:54] there’s no way we’re going to cover everything in today’s episode. But mental models, they really

[00:04:00] kind of became super popular in the business world because of Charlie Munger. If you haven’t

[00:04:07] heard of Charlie Munger, then you’re probably not alone, even though he is amongst one of the most

[00:04:13] successful businessmen in our time. So Charlie Munger is actually the partner of the

[00:04:20] Warren Buffett. And back in 1994, Charlie Munger spoke to the USC Business School, and he basically

[00:04:31] laid out this idea that you need multiple mental models to be successful. And it seems like it’s

[00:04:39] going to be hard, he says, but ultimately, a very small number of these mental models carry most of

[00:04:46] the weight. He also says that you need mental models from multiple mental models to be successful.

[00:04:50] Not just whatever your particular field of study is. So how can we identify these multiple models?

[00:04:59] And how can we find ways of expanding our own set of mental models? That’s what we’re going to talk

[00:05:05] about right after we talk about today’s excellent sponsor, WooCommerce. WooCommerce powers nearly

[00:05:14] 30% of all online stores. Now, what that means is that if you’ve visited over three stores,

[00:05:20] on the internet at any point, if you’ve bought more than three things online from three different

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[00:05:48] very quickly. That’s because WooCommerce is

[00:05:50] built on top of WordPress. Now, WooCommerce understands what developers care about.

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[00:06:12] yours to take. It’s yours to analyze however you want to. Secondly, WooCommerce is going to make

[00:06:18] getting set up extremely difficult. So if you’re going to be able to access it, you’re going to

[00:06:20] have to make it extremely easy. That’s because they have built directly into their onboarding

[00:06:25] experience, a walkthrough on how to set up your WooCommerce store. This includes things like

[00:06:30] getting set up for taxes, which is a huge headache, but they make it easy for you. Additionally,

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[00:06:42] there’s over 140 extensions and growing in the official WooCommerce.com marketplace.

[00:06:48] And subscribing for a year,

[00:06:50] gets you support and updates on all of those extensions as well. So if you’re looking to start

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[00:07:16] WooCommerce. Go and check it out, WooCommerce.com slash developer T.

[00:07:20] Now, if you use WooCommerce, you’re going to be able to do a lot of things. So if you’re

[00:07:20] the code developer T at checkout, you’ll get 20% off of WooCommerce until the end of 2018. 20%

[00:07:28] off. It’s a huge discount. Thank you again to WooCommerce for sponsoring today’s episode

[00:07:33] of developer T. So we’re talking about mental models. We’re talking about how you can expand

[00:07:39] your own mental models. But before we get into that discussion, let’s talk for a second about

[00:07:44] why it’s important to recognize that mental models are so powerful.

[00:07:49] And really kind of start thinking through the lens of mental models. If you understand the mental

[00:07:57] models that you are using actively, then you can kind of separate yourself from those mental models

[00:08:05] and potentially see your problems in a new way, right? So this is a problem solving mechanism.

[00:08:13] Another reason why being aware of mental models is so important. If you recognize what other people’s

[00:08:19] mental models are, right? If you recognize, for example, a coworker, what their mental model is

[00:08:24] when solving a particular problem, then perhaps you can communicate better with that person.

[00:08:31] If you recognize what your customer’s mental models are, then perhaps you can increase the

[00:08:38] value and therefore the effectiveness of the products that you’re providing to those customers.

[00:08:44] So the more of these models that you have available to you,

[00:08:48] the more agile you are in understanding the world. And again, this is not an exaggeration.

[00:08:54] This is truly understanding the way that other people are perceiving, but it goes beyond that

[00:09:00] as well. It’s understanding the things that we have discovered, for example, in the field

[00:09:06] of science or even in math. There’s mental models that are associated with every field of study.

[00:09:12] And if you look into those, even at a very elementary level, if you look into those mental

[00:09:18] models, then you can gain insights to a variety of problems that aren’t even necessarily limited to

[00:09:27] the space that the model applies to directly. So for example, if you are a developer,

[00:09:34] then you’ve probably encountered divide and conquer algorithms. If you haven’t,

[00:09:40] we’ll explain it very simply. Basically, a divide and conquer algorithm means to separate,

[00:09:45] to create sub-partition.

[00:09:48] of information and to continue creating those sub-partitions and solving the problem in smaller

[00:09:55] pieces rather than trying to solve it in one large piece, right? That’s a very crude explanation of a

[00:10:02] divide and conquer algorithm. And even though this is kind of a small scale version of a mental model,

[00:10:07] you can take this concept and apply it to other problems in your life. Whether you are organizing

[00:10:14] people to try to accomplish a particular job,

[00:10:18] or even something as simple as sorting some papers or cleaning out a closet,

[00:10:23] you may be able to benefit from some of these mental models that you’ve gained

[00:10:27] in programming. Now imagine if you added to that list of mental models on a regular basis. If you

[00:10:35] started taking principles that you’re learning, remember we talk about principles on the show,

[00:10:40] principles, models that you’re learning in other areas. Maybe you’re learning models of psychology,

[00:10:46] which we talk about all the time on the show.

[00:10:48] Maybe you’re learning models of physics or models of finance. There are all sorts of models and all

[00:10:56] sorts of depth of these models that you can learn from. And the interesting thing is, as Charlie

[00:11:03] Munger told the students at USC, there really isn’t a ton to learn about. There’s not so many

[00:11:10] models that you should feel overwhelmed. You can actually benefit quite a lot from learning the

[00:11:17] main ones.

[00:11:18] And when we say the main ones, that’s kind of a fluid definition. But an example of this might be

[00:11:24] for programming, the mental model of functional programming, and then the mental model of

[00:11:30] object-oriented programming. We call these paradigms as developers, but if you have a

[00:11:36] mental model that connects to functional programming, then you can take that and apply it

[00:11:42] in your object-oriented programming languages. You can take some of the principles and still use

[00:11:48] what is useful in that different model. In something like economics, you need to understand

[00:11:54] things like the supply and demand mental model, right? These are things that if you were to look

[00:12:01] at, you know, kind of the titles of the chapters of books in these subjects, right? These are things

[00:12:08] that you might find. And understanding that a mental model isn’t really kind of a perfectly

[00:12:14] defined thing, but rather it’s kind of a lens.

[00:12:18] A way of thinking about the world, a way of solving problems, a way of answering questions.

[00:12:24] And the more ways that you have available to you, the more principles that you’ve learned

[00:12:30] from a variety of subjects, the better off you’re going to be in your problem-solving contexts.

[00:12:38] Thank you so much for listening to today’s episode of Developer Tea, our discussion on mental models.

[00:12:43] We’re going to talk about some specific mental models, most likely in the future,

[00:12:48] and we certainly have talked about mental models in the past, even though we may not have necessarily

[00:12:52] titled those things or labeled them as mental models. We certainly have talked about some of

[00:12:59] them in the past. In the future, I love to get a little bit more specific and discuss useful mental

[00:13:05] models that I’m finding in my own career and share them with you. Thank you so much for listening.

[00:13:10] Thank you again to WooCommerce for sponsoring today’s episode. Remember, WooCommerce is such

[00:13:15] an incredibly easy thing to get up and rolling with.

[00:13:18] And they’re offering you a 20% discount for using the code DEVELOPERTEA. That’s two words,

[00:13:23] DEVELOPERTEA, at checkout. And remember, that code ends in March 2018. At the end of March,

[00:13:30] that code is going to expire. So make sure you head over to WooCommerce.com slash DEVELOPERTEA

[00:13:36] today. Thank you again for listening. If you’re enjoying these episodes, and if you don’t want

[00:13:40] to miss out on future episodes, make sure you subscribe. There will be future episodes,

[00:13:45] and they come very quickly, so it’s easy to get behind.

[00:13:48] And then ultimately, you’re probably going to miss something that you would have

[00:13:51] actually connected with, enjoyed, and potentially benefited from. So go ahead and subscribe on

[00:13:57] whatever podcasting app you use. Thank you so much for listening, and until next time, enjoy your tea.

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