Using models to understand the world and make decisions is a good idea.\u00a0 It\u2019s a method used by brilliant decisionmakers around the world.\u00a0 Charlie Mungeris a big supporter of it, and he takes the idea one step further by saying thatone needs a latticework of mental models to string data across when making adecision.\u00a0 This gets to the heart oftoday\u2019s mental model, which is \u201cThe Map is Not the Territory.\u201d\u00a0 My interpretation of this is that the thingyou are abstracting is not the abstraction.\u00a0When we abstract or make a model, we remove a part of the reality to fitinto the model. The map of the territory is not the map.\u00a0\u00a0 In our case, these abstractions aregenerally mental models.\u00a0 If you\u2019re using just one model, and it\u2019s a bad abstraction or just the wrong abstraction to use for that decision, you\u2019re going to suffer.\u00a0Using multiple mental model models filters the data better and resultsin better decisions. When one model disagrees with another, that\u2019s evenbetter.\u00a0 So when you\u2019re making your nextdecision, think about how the model you\u2019re using to make that model isdifferent from the reality.\u00a0 What does itcapture well?\u00a0 What does it miss?\u00a0 Is there a better model to make this decisionwith, or a better combination of models?<\/p>\n\n\n\n