Systems Thinking Research & Leadership Development Institute (STRLDi)
Strategy Consulting & Corporate Development Training for Learning Organizations
The developmental map for large-scale organizations outlines how biases in promotions persist due to entrenched mental models. It highlights beliefs about leadership fit and assumptions of vision’s exclusivity, which resist innovation. By questioning these models, organizations can foster shared meaning, feedback, and ultimately, greater adaptability and agility.
Communities often prioritize family honor over personal truth, believing that speaking up about abuse invites shame. It’s crucial to distinguish between silence that safeguards and silence that enables harm. Encouraging open reflection fosters empathy and understanding, allowing individuals to appreciate each other’s experiences and journeys while addressing underlying issues.
Communities often prioritize family honor over personal truth, believing that speaking up about abuse invites shame. It’s crucial to distinguish between silence that safeguards and silence that enables harm. Encouraging open reflection fosters empathy and understanding, allowing individuals to appreciate each other’s experiences and journeys while addressing underlying issues.
Parents 👭Imposing Life Path; Discipline interpreted as rejection The scenario for Parents & Child is now complete, with each developmental stage showing how parental control, care, and the child’s experience can be either reinforced or reimagined depending on the mental model lens. 👨👩👧 Parents & Child Parent imposing life path Assumption: “I know what’s best … Continue reading #5: Testing the Limits of Each Thinking by Situation Series: Parents & Child
Siblings 👭Gendered care expectations and inheritance The situation for Siblings – Different Genders is now mapped with its mental model, self-discipline practice, and responses across the seven developmental stages. The structure continues seamlessly, showing how rigid gender roles can be sustained or challenged depending on the dominant mental model framework at play. 🧑🤝🧑 Siblings – … Continue reading #4: Testing the Limits of Each Thinking by Situation Series: Siblings – Different Gender
Siblings 👭“Unspoken rivalry”: Unspoken competition or comparison Assumption: “They always get more recognition/love.” Surfacing this allows new appreciation and empathy for each other’s journeys. Mental model: “Love is scarce; only one can be favored.” Self-discipline: Recognize and reframe the zero-sum belief.
The content discusses an individual’s career dissatisfaction stemming from a mental model that equates hard work and pleasing others with eventual rewards. It emphasizes the importance of self-discipline in reassessing inherited definitions of success and questioning whose approval is pursued, highlighting the need for clarity in one’s internal narrative.
Individual 🧍Individual : Self-doubt and Imposter Syndrome Mental model: “I’m not good enough; people will find out I don’t belong here.” Self-discipline: Observe the internal narrative, test assumptions, and begin re-authoring a new story of worth. Surfacing the mental model helps clarify the internal narrative and test it against evidence.
Governments face policy inertia regarding unemployment, driven by distrust in citizens’ voices. The prevailing assumption emphasizes top-down control to maintain stability, overlooking public insight. Encouraging self-discipline and creating forums for sharing lived experiences can enhance empathy and appreciation among individuals, potentially leading to more relevant and effective policies.
The content explores the distinction and relationship between unconscious stories we tell ourselves and the deliberate narratives we present to others. While unconscious stories shape our perceptions unknowingly, masked stories are crafted consciously to influence others. Both types can trap us, impacting personal growth and integrity, highlighting the importance of self-awareness.
Peter Senge expanded on Chris Argyris’s work by integrating mental models into a systemic learning framework. While Argyris focused on interpersonal effectiveness and individual accountability, Senge shifted emphasis to team-based learning and organizational change. He contextualized tools within systems thinking, facilitating a deeper collective transformation process.
Chris Argyris and Donald Schön developed the concept of reflection-in-action to address failures in learning and leadership within organizations. They distinguished between single-loop and double-loop learning, emphasizing the importance of real-time reflection. Their work integrated philosophical ideas, focusing on social practice and revealing defensive reasoning, ultimately promoting reflective professionals and learning organizations.
Kenneth Craik introduced “mental models” in his 1943 book, exploring how humans understand and act in the world. He was influenced by early cybernetics, dissatisfaction with behaviorism, and his background in psychology and physiology. Craik’s insights laid the groundwork for cognitive science, AI, and the impact of beliefs on decision-making.
Cognitive psychology emerged in the mid-20th century as a response to the limitations of behaviorism, which ignored internal mental processes. Key catalysts like World War II, information theory, and advancements in computer science prompted a shift toward studying the mind’s role in processing information, leading to foundational concepts and figures in the field.
Plato and Kant addressed the nature of knowledge and reality under different circumstances. Plato viewed true knowledge as attainable through reason, positing eternal Forms beyond sensory perception. In contrast, Kant sought to reconcile empiricism and rationalism, asserting that the mind actively shapes our experiences, meaning we perceive phenomena, not the noumenon directly.
From Inner Maps to Systemic Tools for Transformation Here is a comprehensive write-up tracing the evolution of the concept of Mental Models — from its philosophical roots to the discipline as defined in The Fifth Discipline. This version is written for a thoughtful reader — who is curious not only about what the concept is, … Continue reading Tracing the Lineage of Mental Models
FROM EVERYDAY ACTS TO ORGANISATIONAL TRANSFORMATION This guide outlines the full scope and texture of personal mastery as a living discipline. Drawing from real experiences, case studies, and foundational tools from The Fifth Discipline, it shows how personal mastery unfolds across three intensities of engagement: Everyday Practice, Transformational Belief Shift, and Organisational/Societal Engagement. SITUATION 1: … Continue reading Three Pathways of The Practice of Personal Mastery:
This post explores transformative innovations throughout history that significantly reshaped society, emphasizing their intentional impact beyond mere technological advances. It highlights the evolution of ideas leading to The Fifth Discipline, which fosters complexity and tacit knowledge essential for effective adaptation. The text calls for a deeper engagement in transformative practices to address modern challenges.
THE ANTI-THESIS: The Misjudged Simplicity of Deep Work Too often, we assume that knowledge—especially the kind required for leadership and systems transformation—can be transferred in slides, soundbites, or summaries. But The Fifth Discipline is not that kind of work. It was never meant to be packaged, diluted, or consumed at speed. UNDERSTANDING TACIT KNOWLEDGE Tacit … Continue reading Mastery Is Not a Metaphor: Honouring the Depth of The Fifth Discipline
Learning Must Lead: A Call to Systemic Leaders in an Age of Acceleration By Sheila Damodaran | STRLDi – Systems Thinking Research & Leadership Development Institute – An invitation into shared responsibility and leadership. 🔍 The Moment We Are In We are moving faster than ever—technologically, economically, socially.But the question is not how fast we … Continue reading ONE-PAGE CALL TO ACTION
A Gathering of Presence, Purpose & Potentiality From September 26–28, 2025, you’re invited to join a generative global gathering in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, where systems awareness meets community connection, and new futures begin. Personal Mastery for Collective Impact; Generating Connections and Actions Toward A Flourishing Future, This unique convening brings together seasoned practitioners and emerging … Continue reading News & Events: SoL Global Forum 2025
TWO ARMS OF HUMANITY: ONE TO MOVE FAST, ONE TO LEARN WELL 🔷 Refined Summary of My Reflections In the mid-1990s, I encountered The Fifth Discipline at a time when the world—and particularly the Global North —was being swept into deeper currents of industrial management thinking. Although Senge’s work sparked waves of fascination among those … Continue reading Building the Second Arm of Humanity: When Learning Must Lead
🔑 KEY THEMES FROM THE POST “Misunderstanding Mastery: When The Fifth Discipline Is Adopted but Misaligned”Read the article here » 1. Misuse of Terminology 2. Root Causes of Misalignment 3. What the Five Disciplines Actually Demand 4. STRLDi’s Stand 🧭 Why This Article Was Written This article was written in response to the growing trend … Continue reading Misunderstanding The Disciplines: When The Fifth Discipline Is Adopted but Misaligned
This stunningly deep and life-giving inquiry is not only how to develop a personal vision rooted in purpose, but how to live from it daily, allow it to evolve, and navigate the emotions—both fear and hope—that shape it. Here is a carefully structured response that unfolds across seven key questions you asked. It aims to … Continue reading Daily Practice of Developing A Personal Vision Rooted In Purpose
If you sense both the deep resonance and the critical distinction between Personal Mastery in Peter Senge’s The Fifth Discipline and Presencing in Otto Scharmer’s Theory U, then you are not alone. Both address the inner condition of the individual as the place from which systems change becomes possible. But they emerge from different roots, … Continue reading The Deep Resonance and Yet the Critical Distinction between Personal Mastery in Peter Senge’s The Fifth Discipline and Presencing in Otto Scharmer’s Theory U.
Systems Thinking Research & Leadership Development Institute (STRLDi) 
You must be logged in to post a comment.