I've been working my way through Seth Godin's 2019 fall book list recently and just finished a book recommendation that aimed to capture mental models. I became very interested in mental models many years ago after reading a blog post by Slava Akhmechet about mental models. Sure, I was conscious and active in thinking in mental models, but I hadn't had the formal 'mindset shift' by putting a label on it and looking for additional mental models to my repertoire. This book was my explicit branching out model for such an adventure.

What are mental models? Mental models are metacognition - which is one's way of linking facts together in a way to make one more aware of awareness instead of just remembering random facts. Mental models help do that stitching.

Super Thinking aims to capture many popular, cultural, and effective mental models to empower our minds to help advance in our own lives. The book is written by Gabriel Weinberg, the creator of DuckDuckGo, and Lauren McCann, a statistician and researcher. They cover most topics in life like business, technology, future, planning, and higher level thinking.

What I liked

I loved the collection of mental models aimed at personal growth, business, statistics, and harmony in ones life. I really think the authors did a thorough job of capturing most models both old and new.

I loved the authors references to mental models being a "minds toolbox" - which is exactly how I am using these mental models

Specific lessons:

  • Keep it simple, stupid! I see this a lot in my career as a developer.
  • Herd immunity - that some can get by and get the benefits of society doing a certain thing, like immunity. The way that it also applied to society and public usage. It can be overused.
  • You can do anything, but not everthing - you must be specific about your focus. Authors reference David Allens methods in a way to keep ones focus.
  • First principles - breaking things down to their rare essence to form a cohesive view for a solution.
  • Boiling frog - try to pay attention to slow changes that can quickly catch you by surprise. Climate change, deforestation - a few examples of how we are slowly boiling the frog with the planet.
  • Ockham's razor - pay more attention to the simple solutions. The first solution may be better than paralysis by analysis.
  • Fundamental attribution error - we play hypocrites when we need to, but fail to see others sides. Be wary of this error in ourselves.
  • Expirmental mindsets can help one adapt more - taking the model that Darwin was right about the one most fitted to change would survive. Authors make reference to the moths in a village that would change from white to black to survive, based on the leaves that the moths can land on changing colors.
  • Do not rely on anecdotal evidence - this can cause us to make some errors when we fall to biases that make us not see the truth there. Be wary of statistics that push biases. There are always biases.
  • Reciprocity - we are all beholden to those who do us favors. Tit for tat.
  • Moats are how businesses keep their edge - be aware of false moats. Wars of attrition can cause others to lose their moats in time.
  • 10X teams are better than 10X employess. Empower the entire team and look for the right fits to enable 10X teams.
  • Radical candor can help one be up front with teams to enable desired behavioral change. There's a matrix that exists between not enough sincerity and not enough performance.
  • Bright spots are the places to look for prior successes. These are places to begin thinking in past tense for future changes. This was also discussed in "Switch: How to Change when change is hard".

Key Learnings

  • Be on the look out of additional mental models in our lives that can help us 'super think' through life.
  • Study mental models to enable higher order thinking in ones life.
  • Sharing the ideas of mental models to others can help rise the tide in human understanding.
  • Use Sytems Thinking to enable wide views of how things work. Be aware of too specifics of focus.
  • Commandos, infantry, and police are all necessary in stages of companies. We must be aware of all and make sure you have the right staff at the right stage.

References