Puzzled looks, repeated questions, and eye-rolls: the sure signs your team doesn’t have a shared mental model yet.

In a recent article, I wrote about the importance of a shared mental model before making an important decision.

Call it shared mental model, call it alignment, call it being on the same page: It doesn’t matter. The main thing is that you take the effort to create mental unity before proceeding with any important matter.

You might argue that you don’t have time for such discussions. They might look inefficient at first, but in the long run, they almost always prove very effective.

After examining the concepts behind the shared mental model in a previous article, let’s now look at a specific example in more detail.

The Setting

As an active reserve officer in the Swiss Armed Forces, I command a battalion. Recently, I decided we needed to change the way we deploy and rotate our tactical elements.

As a battalion commander, you cannot and should not take such decisions in isolation. You should spark the discussion and then let your staff work out possible options for your intention.

And that’s what we did. I floated my ideas, and the staff set off to work.

Multiple Iterations With The Team

In our battalion, it’s standard for the staff to present their products whenever they are ready. Usually, I make decisions upon the first presentation, enabling the staff to carry on with their work.

But not this time. The staff had to present the new concept for deploying and rotating our tactical elements multiple times. Why? The presentations revealed that the staff didn’t have a shared mental model of what we intended to do. The first few presentations were chaotic, many people had puzzled looks on their faces, and the same questions were asked again and again. These are sure signs of a missing shared mental model.

Whenever I sent the team back, they rolled their eyes. However, I explicitly stated that I wasn’t dissatisfied with the team; I just felt we weren’t quite there yet.

And when the product was finally what I expected, everybody said that it was worth taking a few iterations to work out a good solution. That’s the beauty of staff work.

Multiple Iterations With The Partners

Agreeing with your staff on a good solution isn’t enough. A battalion is a small cogwheel in the larger system of the Armed Forces, and you can’t deploy a battalion any way you like without talking to other formations and partners first.

Once we agreed with the staff on how to deploy and rotate our tactical elements, we took several iterations of discussions with our partners. Because it’s important to share the shared model beyond your own staff if you want to be successful.

Multiple Iterations With The Subordinates

Even after getting our partners on board, we weren’t ready yet. After my staff and our partners bought into our new concept, we had to get all our subordinates on board. A battalion is a big organization, and the commander and the staff are just a very small element in a battalion.

Therefore, another set of discussions with the leadership team took place to get everybody on the same page. Only now did we decide to push ahead with the proposed change of deployment and rotation.

The Implementation Timeline

After all those discussions to create a shared mental model, it would be tempting to announce an immediate implementation of this large-scale change.

Don’t do it.

Getting from here to there takes time, even if everybody is on the same page. A battalion is like a tanker ship: You can’t change course within seconds. Take the time to work out a proper transition plan, or you will fail even with the best shared mental model.

The Call To Action: Mental Flexibility

Whenever we discussed the new deployment and rotation model, I asked everybody to show some mental flexibility. And just like developing a shared mental model, developing mental flexibility takes time and effort.