0.1 Part 2: why mental models are difficult to change  (Page 2/5)

Dynamic equilibrium is not about standing in place or lack of motion. Dynamic equilibrium is about motion. But it is the motion of positive and negative forces working against each other, balancing each other out, and keeping everything basically locked in place. The consequences of dynamic equilibrium are reflected in the French adage, “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” As most of us have experienced in our lives, we produce change only to find ourselves reverting back to pre-change conditions. We lose 10 pounds, and gain it back (along with a few extra pounds). Educators create a new vision for their school districts, and they march to the tune of the old vision. The competing forces for and against change balance each other out and keep educators and their school systems in a relatively stable state of being.

Entropy, negentropy, and dynamic equilibrium create something in educators and their school systems that functions like an immune system in our bodies. Just as bodily immune systems fight off foreign substances, the metaphorical anti-change immune system powered by entropy, negentropy, and dynamic equilibrium holds educators and their school systems in place and blocks change (Kegan&Lahey, 2001, p. 6). This “immune system” is difficult to change because people are captives of their systems; or as Kegan and Lahey said, “We do not have them; they have us.” (p. 6)

Social “Infrastructure” Blocks Change in Mental Models

A school district’s social “infrastructure” is that collection of policies, procedures, organization culture, organization design, job descriptions, communication patterns, reward systems, among other things, that support life in an organization. Educators in school districts hold certain beliefs and specific mindsets that are hardened by beliefs and values. These mindsets are collectively built into the system’s social infrastructure. Educators then create and defend policies, procedures, decisions, and behaviors that support and reinforce their mindsets. Further, as educators interact, all of these mindsets are woven together to create a district-wide organization mindset that reflects what they think their district stands for and how they think it should function as a system. This organization-wide mindset then takes on a degree of rigidity that makes it very difficult for educators to think, believe, and do things in ways that do not align with the mindset (which is one of the key reasons why people resist innovative, “outside-the-box” ideas). Educators, therefore, often find it difficult to consider and adopt innovative ideas and it becomes challenging for them and their systems to change.

Sometimes organizations change in spite of their internal social infrastructure. Tushman, Newman, and Romanelli (1986) commented on this phenomenon by observing that organizations develop over long periods of convergent, incremental change that are punctuated by brief periods of “frame-breaking change” (another term for transformational change). They suggested that frame-breaking change occurs in response to or in anticipation of major changes in an organization’s environment. Starbuck (1996), however, believed that frame-breaking change happened differently. He suggested that big changes happen when people and organizations unlearn their old mental models and then suddenly undertake breathtaking change to enact their new mental models; that is, change is a revolutionary response to a dramatic and sudden disorienting dilemma (Mezirow, 2000) that motivates people to examine critically their thinking, believing, and doing. This “revolutionary response” is also known as punctuated equilibrium (Eldredge&Gould, 1972).