Mental model · People
Position, not personality
Position, not personality: Where someone sits in a structure shapes what they see and what pressures them, often more than who they are.
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Where someone sits in a structure shapes what they see and what pressures them, often more than who they are.
Try it now
Take a colleague you find difficult. Write the situation as it must look from their position, in the first person.
What to do with the answer
Ask what would change if you swapped positions. If the answer is "I would probably do the same", it is structural.
Where it misleads
People are still responsible for their behaviour. This explains it; it does not excuse it.
The module it belongs to
- Systems Thinking — Understand connections and consequences
The book behind it
- Seeing systems — Its big ideas, in our own words.