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# Culture-Building to Culture-Competing: How Opposing Mental Models Impact Organizational Change

## Details

**Authors** Bond J

**Year** 2023

**Publisher** Journal of Systems Thinking 3(1):1-11

**Kind of work** article

**Discipline** Business & Management

**Reading level** intermediate

**Kind of engagement** scholarly

[Read it at the publisher](https://doi.org/10.54120/jost.2025-0076JB) 
10.54120/jost.2025-0076JB

## In authors' words

### Abstract

The culture-building graph (CBG) provides a visualization to understand and approach cultural change within an organization. The foundation of this cultural change is the changing of mental models to a shared mental model rooted in the organization’s Vision, Mission, Capacity, and Learning (VMCL). However, what happens when there are opposing VMCL mental models competing for the same group of “fence sitters”? This competition may be characterized by political conflict during elections, cultural conflict between social groups, or even kinetic conflict (warfare) such as the U.S. attempting to win hearts and minds in Iraq and Afghanistan. These are situations where the culture-building model may be utilized for cultural change even when two organizations are in competition. This paper will present a modified version of the CBG, the culture-competition graph, for applications to conflict and propose additional organizational change strategies for cultural change.

### What they set out to do (purpose)

A paper extending the culture-building graph, rooted in the VMCL model, to situations where two organizations' mental models compete for the same "fence sitters".

### What they found (results)

A modified culture-competition graph applies the culture-building model to political, cultural, and even kinetic conflict, with organizational-change strategies to match.

## Commentary

### In short

Uses the culture-building graph to show what happens when two opposing shared mental models compete for the same undecided people.

### Response

Extends the culture-building graph from the VMCL model to cases where two organizations' mental models compete for the same undecided people. An author building on the lab's framework rather than applying it as given.

**Patterns it shows** P

## Questions it bears on

- Q9. [Does the same organization (O) operate above the individual — dyad, team, organization, culture?](https://dsrpevidence.org/question/collective-scale)
- Q10. [What is an adaptive organization?](https://dsrpevidence.org/question/adaptive-organization)
- Q18. [What is culture ($\mathbb{C}$), and where does it live?](https://dsrpevidence.org/question/culture)

**How to cite this** Bond J (2023). Culture-Building to Culture-Competing: How Opposing Mental Models Impact Organizational Change. Journal of Systems Thinking 3(1):1-11.