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There was an interesting talk by @paraschopra on Clubhouse around useful mental models for startups today. I've summarised it at notion.so/Clubhouse-Ment if you're interested [1/2]

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2/ Frameworks thinking, as a thing, has been around for awhile. It is the primary way business school education is done (alongside the case method). It is pervasive in startup culture. It is also flawed.

3/ But we are familiar with the flaws! Enough people have been burnt by misapplied frameworks over the decades (thank you, widespread MBA programs!) that many in business have a shared cultural understanding of “ok, all frameworks are wrong, but some are useful.”

4/ (Those who think exclusively in frameworks perhaps haven’t failed with application yet. But that’s ok. Most people eventually do so.) The problem with using the phrase ‘mental model’ when you can use ‘framework’ is that you cut out all the baggage associated with the latter.

2:51 PM · Jan 25, 2021Twitter Web App

5/ In other words, ‘mental model’ is often a way to sound more insightful (without actually being more insightful) because if you say ‘framework’ everything sounds less sexy. This is what a fad looks like. Presumably ‘frameworks’ were as sexy a few decades ago.

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6/ How do you defend against this? Simple. If you can substitute ‘mental model’ for ‘framework’ in your head, with no loss of nuance, do so. You will be better able to evaluate the framework, aided by the negative baggage associated with frameworks in general.