What is change mental models?

Change mental models is a concept in personal epistemology: Your model of how change happens determines how you approach change.

Example: Two managers face the same restructuring. One believes change is a linear process — announce the new org chart, train people on new roles, wait for adoption. She rolls out the plan in a single all-hands meeting and is baffled when six months later half the team is still operating under the old structure. The other manager believes change is an emergent process — people need to unlearn old patterns before they can absorb new ones. She starts with small pilots, creates feedback loops, and adjusts the plan as resistance surfaces. Same organization, same restructuring, different schema about change, radically different outcomes.

This concept is part of Phase 17 (Meta-Schemas) in the How to Think curriculum, which builds the epistemic infrastructure for meta-schemas.