Reflection in Practice: Mental Models
Read the following in The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization:
Chapter 9, “Mental Models.” You’ll learn about the discipline of reflection and inquiry that is focused on developing awareness of attitudes and perceptions, your own and those of others, in the organization. As you read, consider how working with mental models can also help you clearly define current organizational reality. Since most mental models are often hidden from view, one of the critical contributions for a leader of a learning organization is to develop the collaborative capacity to talk safely and productively about different attitudes with minimal defensive barriers.
For this assignment, you will write a paper (minimum of 300 words) in which you describe the concept of mental models to a chosen audience (either individual or group) and explain how the concept can create opportunities for improvement within the organization.
At the end of the paper you will provide several questions for your audience to think about to promote greater understanding of how the five disciplines inter-relate and may be applied to reveal dynamics within the organization.
