The calibration of the mental model: the 'filter' as a stock of tested 'heuristics' (mental shortcuts)
I have to tell you a story.
I never have, because my goal is not what I've experienced, but what I've learnt.
However, to understand the conclusions of this book, you need to know the process of calibrating the "filter" used to generate them.
A filter is the mental model that each of us uses to read the world. It's a stock of accumulated rules and understandings. Mine was filled with an intense flow of feedback from high-risk "systems".
I was born in a colony in Africa and trained in a wartime officers' school. Combat is a "system" with almost zero feedback delays; you learn the difference between an effective mental model and a flawed one instantly.
When I finished my mission, I started a life as an entrepreneur and built companies. Then a coup d'état brought the social "system" to its knees, forcing me to start from scratch in another country.
I took part in small, medium and large projects, experiencing many successes and failures. Each of these events was a stress test for my mental models.
What I bring you are not opinions, but the conclusions and heuristics that have survived these feedback loops.
A comparison of "systems": the short feedback loop vs. the linear model with delay
Seven years ago, I started a research project to understand why the results of training in war and in companies are so different. The answer lies not in the content, but in the architecture of the learning "system". We can divide them into two models:
- "System" 1: The Short Feedback Loop (used in war schools): This "system" trains behaviour based on action. The structure is a fast and powerful reinforcement loop: a recruit does it, immediately feels the result ('feedback'), which builds confidence (increases a stock), which in turn shapes behaviour and facilitates the next action. This "system" provides training - it moulds the person.
- "System" 2: The Linear Model with Delay (used in academic education): This "system" trains action from information. The structure is a linear flow: information fills a stock of understanding. There is a critical and often infinite delay between "understanding" and "doing". Those who are trained in this way understand everything, do little, rarely trust and almost always complain. This "system" provides information.
So the obvious remains: the "system" based on feedback is immensely more effective.
But why do we resist seeing this?
Because to start the feedback loop of "system" 1, you have to "do the simple thing", an initial expenditure of energy that our ego opposes, preferring the complexity of "system" 2, which allows us to make excuses for not doing it.
The engineering of transformation: the architecture of interconnected feedback loops
Analysing the training step by step, in each case, and what the science proves, an epiphany emerged.
The revelation was not just a list of reasons, but the vision of a perfectly tuned human engineering "system". The conclusion is that what you get out of life is the emergent property of the way your internal "system" manages "confrontation and resistance".
In a school of war, the "system" is designed to install a powerful behavioural reinforcement loop: orders that demand immediate action generate rapid feedback on performance, which builds confidence and strengthens the superman spirit. But what feeds this loop? This is where neuroscience reveals the sub-"systems":
- Intense, focussed training boosts the production of epinephrine (alertness) and acetylcholine (concentration), which improve the quality of action.
- Success in the task and overcoming limits releases dopamine (reward), the neurochemical feedback signal that solidifies confidence.
This repeated cycle promotes neuroplasticity. The constant use of task focus activates the Central Executive Network (CEN) to such an extent that it becomes the dominant mode, replacing the Default Neuronal Network (DNN). The result is a metamorphosis. None of the participants know this, simply trains, feels the result, and the phenomenon happens because multiple feedback loops - behavioural, emotional and neurochemical - are interconnected and mutually reinforcing.
The challenge of "systems" management: aligning the internal structure with the external environment
To face today's world, the fundamental challenge is that of a "systems" manager: to align our internal structure with the external environment in order to "survive in peace and comfort". Our internal "system" is a complex web of:
- Biological loops: our automatic defences, the immune system and homeostasis.
- Historical feedback: Our memories and emotions, data from past successes and failures.
- Rules and Models: Our beliefs, truths and certainties that govern our responses.
The challenge arises because this internal "system", calibrated for an ancient world, reacts poorly to the modern environment.
The task, then, is an art of effective management of this "system", which is divided into two areas:
- Solving the problems of our own "system": Managing our physical and mental health.
- Using our "system" to solve other people's problems.
This is a possible and effective art if we use wisely not only the parts of our "system", but the understanding of how they interconnect to produce our behaviours.
The "system" in action: the emergence of a new structure through loop engineering
The following story is a case study of how a human "system" can be re-architected.
The Initial State of the "system" (The Arrival)
In 1967, six hundred men arrived at the barracks. They were six hundred individual "systems", each governed by its own 'loop' of balancing comfort, fear and past habits. Rich and poor, labourers and vagabonds, they all shared a common anguish. With those imperfect men, we would form a new structure.
The Systemic Intervention (The Training)
The process began the next day. The environment was designed to break the old loops. Comfort was the first to be removed. The orders were short, the actions unavoidable. This "school of feeling" is a school of quick and relentless feedback. The requirement to make the bed or polish the boots perfectly, without explanation, forced each man to start his own learning loop (Action → Error → Adjustment feedback). At the same time, synchronised action began to build a powerful new loop of collective reinforcement.
The Emergent Property (Ninety Days Later)
Transformation was the emergent property of the dominance of this new 'loop'. The men, who now marched with their heads held high, were not the same. Their behaviour was no longer governed by individual fear, but by trust in the new 'system'. They had learnt to control their focus, to live with pain and to overcome their limits, because the group loop was now stronger than their personal discomfort loops.
The "system" test (On the Front Line)
The baptism of fire was the final test. In the face of fear, the old "system" tried to take back control. But the new "system", forged in training, proved to be more robust. The feedback of danger was received, but the response was not individual panic, but the execution of the trained Control policy. Dozens of hours of training worked. Everyone knew what to do, and mutual trust allowed the impossible to be achieved.
What I saw was not heroes; it was a well-designed "system" performing its function.