Renaisi’s Guide to Systems Change: Activity 4 – Shifting Mental Models

Find the Guide to Systems Change here, including examples of this work from our partner organisations.

This guide to systemic change sets out five activities that we have found critical for organisations and partnerships that want to change a system. We know that this journey will look different for each organisation and that the journey won’t be linear. You cannot tick one activity off and move to the next – you will need to continually work on and embed each activity in your work over time. But we do think that there is a clear starting point – and that starting point is yourself.

The article below sets out how we have seen organisations and partnerships progress the fourth activity in systemic change – Mental Models.  

Activity 4: Mental models  

Unpick and rewrite the narratives, values and attitudes that hold the system in place

Why is this important?

Changing our belief systems – what we hold as valuable, normal and true – makes change lasting and deep rooted

Mental models are attitudes, narratives, value systems and ways of seeing the world. They are the most deep-rooted parts of a system. Without surfacing, unpicking and rewriting the mental models that hold systems in place, shifts in processes, structures and relationships of power are likely to be short-term or superficial.

What does it look like in practice?

The mental models that underpin the current system should become clearer to you as you progress through Activities 1-3. They will be revealed as you interrogate the rationale behind decision-making in your organisation. They will the motivation for resistance from those that say they can’t commit to your coalition for system change and the foundational beliefs underpinning infrastructure that creates the patterns of harm you uncover as you learn about the system.

Mental models are often the most challenging and painful parts of the system to face up to and change, as they are often deeply connected to our identities and what we value. Changing these takes time and individuals engaging in it should keep circling back to the introspection in Activity 1. We’ve found that changing what we value, prioritise, and consider normal involves both:

• personal reflection to untangle ingrained thought patterns
• collaborative efforts to shift towards mental models that ensure permanent shifts in power and minimising harm

These aren’t activities you complete and move on from but practices that have to continue as your systemic change work progresses. Activity 4 is an ongoing process in systems change that requires continually scrutinising if the new relationships, structures, and processes that you shift towards really reflect different mental models, or are underpinned by the same, harmful ways of viewing the world.

Building a new system takes creativity and the ability to imagine something new. Shifting mental models can open up space for this reimagining. It can give us the freedom to think outside of the current system and what it tells us to value.   

Key questions to unpick in this activity:

• If you have identified harmful attitudes, narratives and beliefs in the last activity, how do these connect? Are there any overarching belief systems or narratives that hold them together?
• How do these narratives and beliefs influence your interactions with others in the system? (even those interactions you perceive of as harmless)
• What narratives and beliefs would we have to hold to ensure there was a shared commitment to minimise harm?
• How do we work with others to collectively shift our ways of thinking? How do we build the trust and care to be able to do this?

Indicators of change:

• Perceptions of where funding should go and what it is designed to do shift.
• Changes to decision making structures and perceptions of risk.
• Stories we tell move away from stigma around an individual, group or issue towards how the system causes harm.

We hope you’ll download and read the full guide, which sets out the full detail of our approach along with examples of this work from partner organisations including Youth Futures Foundation, Black Thrive and Smallwood Trust.

We hope you’ll download and read the full guide, which sets out the full detail of our approach along with examples of this work from partner organisations including Youth Futures Foundation, Black Thrive and Smallwood Trust.

For more information, please contact Kezia.

Articles on Activities 1-3 are also available here.