Rest of October

In these six sessions we went into more detail on the motivation theory applicable to people and also discussed about the mental model theory in dealing with the motivation levels in different people and used the ladder of inference to help us learn the nuances in the motivation development in different people. We discussed about the different pre-determined mental models that people have in their minds about different situations as people see only what they want to see and all their conclusions are derived from what is already a biased observational data. As an example of this would be the mental model of Filipinos that we were lectured upon our arrival in Manila, that normally Filipinos would never say NO to any request even if they actually wanted to say no. As an Indian, my mental model was totally based on the picture that was painted before me during the start of the MBA course. We went through a few examples of how people tend to generalize based on mental models, with the case of the two Imams who were not allowed to fly by the pilot, being the most prominent one.

To make people change their beliefs and mental models, what is required is climbing towards in the ladder of inference. By presenting facts, by presenting alternate routes at achieving similar results people can be motivated to climb down the ladder of inference and hence create a new mental model based on relevant facts. In our Learning team, we tried to implement our learning into trying to understand each other’s mental model and using the knowledge to motivate each other towards a better understanding.