PDF Summary:Super Thinking: The Big Book of Mental Models, by Gabriel Weinberg and Lauren McCann

Brilliant thinkers across all disciplines rely on mental models–recurring concepts and patterns that explain a wide array of situations. For example, physicists might use Newton’s law of inertia to predict that planets in motion will remain in motion, and biologists might rely on natural selection to explain the origin of the fight-or-flight response.

However, mental models aren’t only useful inside the ivory tower. Gabriel Weinberg and Lauren McCann argue that using mental models can drastically elevate our everyday reasoning and decision-making skills. In Super Thinking: The Big Book of Mental Models, they provide an array of mental models to improve our decision-making, in life and in business.

In this guide, we’ll first discuss Weinberg and McCann’s foundational mental models for general decision-making, then explore professional applications. We’ll consider strategies to implement these models and compare the authors’ discussion of mental models with other similar works.

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2. It fails to weight different pros and cons, so you focus solely on the quantity of pros and cons.

(Shortform note: To mitigate this problem, consider dividing pros and cons into major and minor subcategories. For example, more room for upward mobility could be a major pro, whereas an extra week of paid leave might only be a minor pro.)

3. The grass-is-greener mentality leads us to naturally overemphasize pros. (Shortform note: While the grass-is-greener mentality inclines us toward decisions that require change, status quo bias—the preference for our current situation over alternatives—inclines us against making decisions which involve substantial change. In such cases, we may be naturally predisposed to overemphasize the cons of change, rather than pros.)

So, while a pro-con list may work well enough for simpler decisions, Weinberg and McCann caution against using it in more complex decisions.

More Complexity: Cost-Benefit Analysis

To improve, Weinberg and McCann recommend creating a cost-benefit analysis of your decision. Unlike pro-con lists, a cost-benefit analysis lists the cumulative costs that a decision will incur alongside its cumulative benefits. It thus quantifies the consequences of your decision.

At a rudimentary level, a cost-benefit analysis might weigh individual pros and cons on a scale of 10 to -10, summing these values to recommend a decision—if the total is positive, the decision is worthwhile, and if it’s negative, the cost is too high. Returning to our pro-con list above, you might retool it into the following cost-benefit analysis:

Unlike the pro-con list, the cost-benefit analysis yields a more conclusive verdict: You shouldn’t take the new position, since the cons outweigh the pros.

To further improve your analysis, Weinberg and McCann recommend assigning each cost and benefit an explicit monetary value. For instance, relocating to a new city might cost $10,000, whereas an extra week of paid leave might be worth $3,000.

(Shortform note: While assigning costs and benefits a monetary value can be helpful, remember that monetary value diminishes beyond a certain point. For example, if you currently make $40,000 a year, a $15,000 raise could tangibly improve your quality of life. However, if you’re currently making $250,000, it’s unlikely that a $15,000 raise would have the same impact. So, be sure to consider these diminishing returns alongside your cost-benefit analysis.)

Most Complexity: Decision Trees

Both the pro-con list and the cost-benefit analysis assume that you’ll know what will result from your decision. But Weinberg and McCann recognize that sometimes, there are many possible outcomes, and you have only a rough idea how likely any given outcome is. For instance, when governments institute new policies, they rarely know the exact consequences beforehand.

In such cases, use a decision tree to handle this uncertainty. In addition to assigning monetary values, decision trees also assign probabilities to each outcome, representing the likelihood that it will occur.

To see this in action, let’s continue the lawyer example with a few caveats: First, if you accept the new position, there’s an 80% chance that you’ll thrive and eventually become a partner. Second, the increased pressure might make you crack, so there’s a 20% chance that you’ll end up getting fired at the new job. Finally, you’re 100% certain that staying at your current job will lock you into your current position—an associate—for the foreseeable future.

Here, there are three possibilities: You accept the new job and become a partner, you accept the new job and crack under pressure, or you stay at your current job and remain an associate. Assuming you’ve assigned these three outcomes values of $100,000, -$50,000, and $75,000, respectively, you can create the following decision tree:

This decision tree lists possible decisions in the first node (rectangles), the likelihood of a given outcome in the second node (ovals), and the monetary value of that outcome in the third node (diamonds).

Crucially, decision trees allow us to calculate each decision’s expected value, the average monetary value resulting from a decision. To do so, multiply the likelihood of each outcome by its respective monetary value, and then sum them up for each decision. If your decision has two possible outcomes, your calculation would look like this:

(Outcome 1 likelihood)x(Outcome 1 monetary value) + (Outcome 2 likelihood)x(Outcome 2 monetary value) = (expected value)

For example, you’d calculate the expected value of accepting the new job with this formula:

(0.8)x($100,000) + (0.2)x(-$50,000) = $70,000

By contrast, the expected value of keeping your current job is more straightforward:

(1)x($75,000) = $75,000

Because the expected value of keeping your current job is higher than that of accepting the new job, the decision tree recommends keeping your current job.

Does Deliberation Yield More Satisfying Decisions?

The decision-making tools Weinberg and McCann discuss all assume that deliberation leads us to make better decisions. However, this assumption might be false; one recent set of studies showed that, even for complex decisions, people were generally more satisfied with decisions made without deliberation. For example, among customers shopping for complex products at IKEA, those who purchased products without deliberating were more satisfied than those who purchased products after deliberating.

One possible explanation for these results is that customers who deliberate before making decisions have higher expectations, making them harder to satisfy. It’s possible that conscious deliberation still leads to better decisions, even if it doesn’t lead to more satisfying decisions. Consequently, this allows us to reconcile the studies’ results with Weinberg and McCann’s assumption that deliberation helps us make better decisions.

Efficient Decision-Making

So far, we’ve learned how to make decisions amid uncertainty. Now, we’ll focus on making decisions efficiently. To do so, Weinberg and McCann discuss mental models designed to maximize our efficiency. We’ll examine three:

1. Before approaching specific decisions, identify your north star, your overarching goal or vision. When you orient decisions toward your north star, your abilities compound and you become more efficient at pursuing your goals.

(Shortform note: Weinberg and McCann don’t offer actionable advice for finding your north star. However, Simon Sinek’s Start With Why provides a strategy: Step back and reflect on your motivations for your actions. This might involve asking, “What do I particularly enjoy about my job?” For example, if you own a bakery, you reflect and realize that baking serves your larger goal—bringing your community together in a warm environment.)

2. After identifying your north star, perform deep work, a concept from Cal Newport’s book, Deep Work. This involves spending extended periods of time dedicated to one important task, free of distractions and interruptions. In the long run, performing deep work will yield greater returns than juggling various tasks at once.

(Shortform note: Weinberg and McCann discuss deep work as an alternative to multitasking, which diffuses your concentration across various activities. However, Newport clarifies that deep work is also an alternative to task-switching, where you frequently shift gears from one task to another. Because mental residue from the previous task takes several minutes to overcome, Newport argues that task-switching also inhibits efficiency.)

3. Perform high-leverage activities to get more out of your decisions. In physics, a lever allows you to lift heavier objects than you could on your own. Similarly, high-leverage decisions create oversized results from less effort.

(Shortform note: In certain contexts, the term “leverage” has a negative connotation, as it involves exploiting an advantage to get what you want. For example, a corrupt politician might leverage their influence to get unpopular bills passed. Alternatively, in The Great Mental Models Volume 2, Shane Parrish and Rhiannon Beaubien argue that leverage can be an extension of reciprocity. In other words, leverage allows you to offer others the best exchange for your services, which benefits all parties.)

Part 4 | Professional Uses: Decisions for Successful Companies

So far, we’ve focused on general principles of decision-making, with an eye toward pitfalls to avoid and models to apply instead. In Part 4, we’ll explore more specific uses of mental models, focusing on professional uses for business leaders.

First, we’ll examine mental models to understand general strategies for building successful companies and business models. Next, we’ll focus on building successful teams and helping your employees reach their potential. Then, we’ll examine mental models geared toward increasing and retaining your market power. Finally, we’ll conclude by discussing mental models designed to avoid, or minimize, conflict with competitors.

Use Natural Models to Become Adaptable

In evolutionary theory, the process driving evolution is natural selection. Broadly speaking, natural selection dictates that genes which contribute to genetic fitness—the ability to survive and reproduce—are most likely to be passed down. For example, giraffes with longer necks can reach food more easily than those with shorter necks, which improves their odds of surviving and reproducing. In turn, that trait is more likely to be passed down to future generations.

Weinberg and McCann argue that natural selection likewise applies to societal contexts, as ideas that adapt to society’s evolving preferences are more likely to thrive. Businesses that adapt to these shifting preferences are better positioned for success, while those unwilling to adapt are quickly left behind. Weinberg and McCann provide a variety of mental models to help maximize adaptability and put your business on the path to success.

Adaptation as an Infinite Game

By constantly adapting to a dynamic society, you treat business as an infinite game–like Tetris–where the objective is to continue playing indefinitely. In doing so, Simon Sinek argues that you’ll be more successful than if you view business as a finite game—like chess—that has a fixed endpoint. To treat business as an infinite game you adapt to, Sinek encourages the following:

• Be prepared to pivot proactively. By anticipating changing societal preferences, you can position yourself to thrive when change does occur.

• Study worthy competitors. By studying successful competitors’ strategies, you can learn additional ways to adapt and survive.

• Build trusting teams. If you cultivate trust, your employees are more likely to discuss ideas for improving your company.

Overcome Inertia

A primary obstacle to adapting is inertia. In physics, inertia refers to an object’s tendency to continue along the same path in the absence of external forces. For example, if you’re playing billiards and shoot the eight ball toward the corner pocket, it will continue in that direction unless an external force acts upon it.

Similarly, Weinberg and McCann argue that personal and professional inertia makes us resistant to changing our current path, which creates harmful rigidity. To avoid this rigidity, we must constantly question our beliefs and assumptions, and be willing to experiment with change. Netflix exemplifies the value of resisting inertia—in 2007, they shifted from physical DVD rentals to online streaming, upending the entertainment industry.

(Shortform note: In The Great Mental Models Volume 2, Parrish and Beaubien discuss a closely related physics model: friction, a force that hinders motion. In a business context, external factors can create friction and hinder adaptation. For example, computer companies might encounter friction via hardware manufacturing issues, and start-ups might encounter friction in the form of funding issues. When working in concert, friction and inertia can lead to stagnation: Because of inertia, entities that are currently stationary tend to stay stationary, and because of friction, external factors make it difficult to change paths.)

Create Momentum

Closely related to inertia is momentum. To succeed as a business, Weinberg and McCann propose pursuing ideas and products whose momentum is increasing.

To identify ideas and products with increasing momentum, seek out those about to reach a tipping point. In short, a tipping point is the moment when a system begins to rapidly shift. For example, in the 1990s, Baltimore reached a tipping point that sparked a syphilis epidemic, as a large number of those in high-density areas were exposed.

In business, tipping points occur when products are purchased not only by early adopters—those willing to try new ideas without social pressure—but also by the early majority—those willing to try ideas popularized by early adopters. By remaining aware of trends among early adopters, you can anticipate which products are likely to gain momentum in the future.

How to Reach the Tipping Point

Among your own products, you need to reach tipping points to maximize momentum. In Crossing the Chasm, Geoffrey Moore provides a guideline for helping you reach tipping points by crossing the “chasm” between the early and mainstream market. This guideline includes four steps:

• Use your intuition to choose a niche market to target.

• Develop a “simplified whole product” for your niche—roughly, this is your core product and necessary external components. For example, a simplified whole product of a smartphone would include the phone and its operating system and charging devices.

• Position your product by developing a position statement that situates it among competitors in the market.

• Secure a distribution channel to sell your product to potential customers.

For example, imagine you want to create a dating app. First, you might intuitively see the potential for a dating app for divorcees, and choose them as your niche market. Next, you could develop a beta version of your website ready for a smaller pool of members. After that, you could position your product as a viable alternative to the competition, highlighting its advantages. Finally, you could purchase advertisements located in places most viewed by divorcees.

Harness Your Team’s Potential

Still, Weinberg and McCann recognize that adaptability alone isn’t sufficient for success—you also have to harness your employees’ potential to build thriving teams.

In particular, Weinberg and McCann’s goal is to build 10x teams, those composed of competent employees positioned to thrive in light of their unique skills. To build these teams, they argue that one obvious strategy—recruiting only all-star employees—won’t work, because Joy’s Law states that most of the smartest, highly talented people in the world always work for someone else. Since you can’t bank on everyone being a natural all-star, it’s crucial to instead harness your employees’ potential.

(Shortform note: Even when they’re available, star employees can create challenges in your team. For example, hiring a star can result in more interpersonal conflict—possibly owing to jealousy and resentment—which hurts productivity. In a similar vein, providing too much positive feedback to your star can feed their ego and harm team performance. So, star employees aren’t always worth the trouble.)

Organizational Culture

The first step toward building 10x teams is creating a strong organizational culture. In short, organizational culture refers to the shared beliefs, practices, and values of a given organization.

Weinberg and McCann clarify that strong organizational culture isn’t one-size-fits-all. Still, certain steps are essential to shaping a positive culture, including:

• Designate a concrete north star.
• Make your core values explicit.
• Reward employees for outstanding performances.
• Embody your desired norms and values.

By taking these steps, leaders can actively shape company culture in the desired direction.

More Ways to Improve Organizational Culture

While Weinberg and McCann view organizational culture as only one component of thriving businesses, Patrick Lencioni argues that it’s the single biggest advantage a business can attain. In The Advantage, Lencioni offers several recommendations for improving organizational culture to supplement Weinberg and McCann’s strategies:

• Encourage healthy debate among the leadership team, allowing members to determine the best idea on its merits.

• Foster accountability among team members. This decreases the burden on leaders to hold everyone accountable.

• Implement achievable short-term goals. This guarantees consistent improvement and prevents stagnation.

Although these steps don’t invoke mental models, they offer helpful insights into the foundation of a healthy organizational culture. When utilized alongside Weinberg and McCann’s suggestions, they can help you nurture effective teams that are prepared for success.

Winning Employees’ Hearts and Minds

Weinberg and McCann further claim that winning hearts and minds is a key mental model for garnering support. In military contexts, this involves directly appealing to citizens’ emotions and reason to gain their support. For instance, Ukraine employed this model in its war against Russia in 2022, with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy framing the war as one against tyranny and evil, while simultaneously combating disinformation by Russian media.

Similarly, winning hearts and minds in a business context ensures that employees are intrinsically motivated. To do so, clearly communicate values and demonstrate the tangible needs your business meets. In turn, you’ll win employees over to your cause, which encourages them to persevere through challenges. By contrast, employees who are only extrinsically motivated will jump at the opportunity to leave when another offer satisfies their extrinsic desires better—for instance, when a higher-paying job comes along.

Building Organizational Health for Remote Companies

Weinberg and McCann’s advice for winning hearts and minds is geared toward companies that operate in-person. However, the Covid-19 pandemic shifted many companies to remote work. For such companies, it can be harder to establish a cohesive organizational culture, since there’s less in-person interaction to reinforce norms and values. But there are strategies to mitigate this problem:

• Organize monthly all-hands’ meetings, which provide an avenue for clear communication and strengthen your team’s sense of belonging.

• Introduce fun team-building activities, which reinforce the personal connection between your team members.

• Create avenues for casual conversation, which yields a warmer environment.

• Praise individual accomplishments, which reminds employees that they’re appreciated.

Manage the Individual

In addition to team-building, maximizing potential requires managing each employee in the manner best suited to them.

One key to managing individual employees is placing them in roles tailored to their skills. For instance, Weinberg and McCann advise that introverts can be better suited to isolated positions, such as strategic roles, whereas extroverts can perform better in communicative environments, like sales roles.

(Shortform note: Studies suggest that, in the workplace, extroverts are both higher-paid and more quickly promoted than their introverted colleagues. Consequently, introverts are incentivized to act more extroverted. However, introverts who act extroverted in the short term can experience fatigue and diminished performance in the long term. Accordingly, it’s important to avoid excessively encouraging introverts to become more extroverted in the workplace.)

Similarly, recognizing the specific needs of your organization can clarify which employees to recruit. For instance, generalists—those who prefer learning about a broad range of topics—can thrive in start-ups, where employees need to perform a wider array of tasks. By contrast, specialists—those who prefer learning in-depth about individual topics—can thrive in larger organizations, which can afford to invest in experts.

(Shortform note: In The Great Mental Models Volume 2, Shane Parrish and Rhiannon Beaubien observe that the generalist vs. specialist distinction is likewise applicable to entire companies. Generalist companies, like Walmart, offer wide ranges of products. By contrast, specialist companies, like Untuckit (which sells casual men’s shirts), focus on more specific niches.)

Guidance Within the Role

Once placed in the optimal role, employees need further guidance and nurturing to maximize their potential.

In particular, Weinberg and McCann argue that managers should encourage deliberate practice from their employees. A notion pioneered by Anders Ericsson in Peak, deliberate practice occurs when we’re placed in situations at the brink of our abilities and receive consistent feedback on our performance. For example, a novice chess player might analyze positions on the edge of their understanding, then review this assessment with an expert coach.

(Shortform note: In Peak, Ericsson clarifies further components of deliberate practice to keep in mind. For example, deliberate practice needs to involve precise, objective measurement; there must be a concrete way to determine your performance and progress. Moreover, deliberate practice must be competitive; you need incentives to succeed and disincentives to fail.)

Gain Sustainable Competitive Advantage

Once you’ve learned how to fulfill your team’s potential, the final step is to derive a sustainable competitive advantage. In essence, this is a long-term edge over competitors that you can exploit. For example, Tesla has derived a sustainable competitive advantage by producing its own car batteries, which consistently cuts costs while delivering higher-quality batteries than the competition.

Though sustainable competitive advantage is widely touted as the holy grail of business, some recommend instead pursuing transient advantages, short-term edges that collectively yield long-term success. In particular, they argue that sustainable competitive advantage is unrealistic, as globalization and increased digitization have made it harder to derive long-term edges. So, rather than pursuing sustainable advantages, they recommend seeking short-term advantages to exploit.

For example, Amazon gained transient advantage by offering incrementally more products: It started as a platform for selling books, then added CDs, then expanded to products like toys and electronics, and eventually launched a streaming service. None of these advantages were sustainable—other companies also sold CDs and goods online, and other streaming services emerged—but each one provided a short-term advantage that Amazon exploited for a certain period. (However, these short-term edges may have collectively yielded a long-term edge, because the sheer range of products available on Amazon is now a sustainable competitive advantage.)

Finding Secrets

Weinberg and McCann suggest that one key to deriving a sustainable competitive advantage is finding secrets. Typically, these are little-known pieces of information that can yield high-leverage opportunities. For instance, in the late ’90s and early 2000s, Canadian sports bettor Bob Voulgaris used data analytics to identify edges when betting, as casinos weren’t yet systematically using analytics. From this secret, he netted millions.

However, secrets can also be well-known information deemed too risky to act upon. For example, the possibility of electric cars was well-known before Tesla; in 1900, they were even the most-purchased car type. Yet, because it was widely assumed that they were financially untenable, traditional automakers decided to focus on gas-powered cars. By challenging this assumption, Tesla exploited a widely known “secret” to become a trillion-dollar company.

While there’s no foolproof method to finding secrets, Weinberg and McCann encourage intellectual curiosity and openness to new ideas from unexpected places. More concretely, they recommend surrounding yourself with people from other fields, since secrets in one field are often well-known in another.

Further Steps for Finding Secrets

Weinberg and McCann cite Peter Thiel’s book, Zero to One, as the origin of their proposal to find secrets. In the book, Thiel offers several additional steps for finding secrets:

• Believe that secrets are out there. Resist the temptation to believe that we’ve already uncovered all the relevant secrets.

• Examine questions that mainstream thinkers seem to ignore or deem worthless. These questions often reveal secrets.

• Be willing to look foolish by questioning conventional assumptions. Adherence to these assumptions can inhibit our ability to unearth secrets

Historically, the Wright Brothers exemplified these steps in developing the first successful airplane. By questioning the conventional assumption that flying was technologically impossible, they discovered secrets—like using wing warping to generate more lift—which culminated in a successful flight in December of 1903.

Reaching Product/Market Fit

Despite their importance, Weinberg and McCann argue that secrets alone can’t guarantee success. Rather, they help us design a product that fills a gap in the market and consequently becomes in demand. In other words, secrets help us develop product/market fit.

Product/market fit is pivotal in determining which of various similar products will thrive. After all, although over 170 companies currently produce smartphones, only one of them is Apple. More generally, the first product that reaches perfect product/market fit is likely to succeed.

(Shortform note: Products that attain product/market fit still undergo the product life cycle, often culminating in market decline, where they fall out of favor with consumers. For this reason, it’s important to continue adapting even after reaching product/market fit, or your success could be short-lived. Once again, it’s key to remember Simon Sinek’s advice in The Infinite Game: treat business as an infinite game, where the goal is to continue playing.)

Customer Development

To achieve product/market fit, Weinberg and McCann advocate engaging in customer development. Simply put, this involves experimenting with your customer base so that you best understand their perspective. By keeping this perspective in mind when creating your product, it’s more likely that your product will be attuned to customers’ wants and needs.

For example, customer development might occur via focus groups, where random samples of customers discuss your product before its launch and share impressions. Harkening back to Part 2, this process lets you de-risk assumptions about your product’s viability and potential. By incorporating the feedback gleaned from customers into further iterations of your product, Weinberg and McCann claim that you’ll be able to quickly reach product/market fit.

(Shortform note: Weinberg and McCann discuss customer development in the context of specific products. However, customer development is also applicable to entire business models. In particular, start-ups can use customer development to determine the strengths and weaknesses of their potential business models. For example, start-ups might run surveys to assess consumer needs, and develop business models to meet those needs.)

Minimize Damage from Conflict

Even with sustainable competitive advantages, successful companies must be wary of conflict with competitors. To that end, Weinberg and McCann offer mental models designed to either avoid conflict altogether or minimize fallout once it begins.

Deterrence

To avoid conflict in the first place, deterrence is a useful strategy. This involves employing a threat to deter the opposition from engaging in conflict. Parents of rebellious children, for example, might deter them from sneaking out by threatening to ground them if caught.

As one particularly useful form of deterrence, Weinberg and McCann recommend the carrot and stick model. This model consists of some form of negative punishment (the stick), alongside some form of positive reinforcement (the carrot). For example, a professor might deter students from skipping class by threatening to reduce their grades while also promising a grade boost for those with perfect attendance. By using this model, you reap the benefits of both punishment and positive reinforcement, which increases the likelihood that conflict will be avoided.

(Shortform note: The efficacy of positive reinforcement versus punishment varies depending on your desired goal. Generally, positive reinforcement is more effective at encouraging action, while punishment is more effective at encouraging inaction. However, some argue that this asymmetry doesn’t hold for children, for whom rewards work consistently better.)

Containment

When deterrence fails, the next step is containment. In short, containment involves taking steps to prevent further escalation and minimizing the damage. For example, if you’re a food distributor who’s realized that customers purchasing a particular food product are falling ill, you might recall that product to stop further damage.

Weinberg and McCann argue that, in the long term, containment can prevent further harm, because conflict left unchecked can start a domino effect of further damage. For example, Blockbuster failed to contain initial conflict with Netflix, with Blockbuster CEO John Antioco spurning a $50 million offer to purchase Netflix. This failure to contain the budding problem created a domino effect, ultimately leading Blockbuster to declare bankruptcy in 2010.

(Shortform note: While containment can prevent domino effects, it can also have adverse consequences. For example, consider the historical paradigm of containment: President Harry Truman’s strategy in the Cold War to prevent the expansion of the Soviet Union. To prevent communism from gaining influence, Truman provided military and economic assistance to countries at risk of Soviet invasion. However, scholars allege that Truman’s containment strategy inadvertently inhibited diplomacy and the possibility of dialogue with the Soviets. Containment, then, isn’t always a risk-free approach.)

Appeasement

If all else fails, Weinberg and McCann recommend appeasement, even if you have to make significant concessions to your opposition. For example, imagine you’re locked in a legal battle with competitors that threatens to harm your company’s reputation. In this case, it might be worthwhile to make a settlement offer to appease them. By doing so, you make a short-term concession, but prevent possible long-term catastrophe.

(Shortform note: The most famous historical example of appeasement was actually a flop: In 1938, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain signed the Munich Agreement, licensing the German annexation of Sudetenland to appease Germany and avoid further conflict. This decision famously proved moot: Conflict ensued nonetheless. Though the Munich Agreement is often cited as a cautionary tale against appeasement, this may be a case of hindsight bias—thinking an outcome was easier to predict in hindsight than it actually was.)