What are shared mental models and do your teams have them?

In the last newsletter I wrote about cultural integration.  I was preparing to speak at the Washington FIGT conference entitled Cultural Integration and the Illusion of Closeness.

At the same time I was working on a paper reviewing the research into teams, multi-cultural teams (MCT) and cultural intelligence as part of my professional development for the Australian College of Organisational Psychologists.

Both the MCT research and the FIGT conference have left me reflecting on mental models and the extent to which they are shared, or we assume they are shared, with those around us. 

The teams’ literature places a great deal of emphasis on shared mental models as one of the critical cognitive factors that influence a team’s effectiveness.  Team members who think alike about their work are more likely to be effective as they can anticipate the way each other will work and back each other up in critical situations.

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