People have private mental models of the org and its external environment, typically shaped by general hierarchy images and their local perspective on the organization. Without a shared mental model based on actual structure, conversations between people about the organization start with different, often unacknowledged, views of the terrain. Consequently, many changes are uninformed and suboptimal, or actually destructive of good management

As people-in-positions change their mental models of the internal and external world, they make changes in their local area of the org to better reflect reality, take advantage of opportunities, and respond to challenges. Episodically, large portions or the whole organization goes through transformative adjustments