To be an intelligent person, you must have many models.

Editor’s note: This article comes from the WeChat public account “Li language professional beauty” (ID: crystal_words) , author : Zhao Xiaoli.

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Charlie Munger once said, “ To be a wise person, you must have many models. You have to form a frame in your mind made up of various thinking models , And then hang practical and indirect experience on this powerful thinking model rack for torture. “

Munger’s words have been widely disseminated, and let us first understand how important model thinking is.

But in fact, the types, applications, and functions of models are far wider than you and I imagine. Now that the data is exploding, we basically can’t find any research areas that are not affected by models. field.

  • Consulting giants such as McKinsey and Deloitte are building business models by building models;

  • Financial companies such as JP Morgan Chase will use models to select portfolios;

  • The human resources departments of Google and Ali will use predictive analysis models to evaluate more than 3 million job seekers;

  • Amazon, JD.com, etc. recommend products to consumers through machine learning models;

  • The Gates Foundation uses an epidemiological model to design a vaccination strategy;

  • Governments at all levels also predict the impact of tax and other policies through economic models …

    These smart people and organizations are preventing single attribution based on narrow experience. They are all using one or more “models” to interpret data and make decisions.

    You know, the model is a secret weapon used by “walk fast” people and top team companies! 01 The problem is here-

    • What models do you need to learn to be smart?

    • Munger’s model is universal wisdom or the conclusion of scientific deduction?

    • How do we ordinary people train to obtain their own cognitive models?

      ……

      The answers to these questions are vague, so Wan Weigang said that Munger ’s thinking model is actually a set of understanding and thinking, which is equivalent to the idioms of the new era, like cold lips, cold soup, etc. It does not provide the deduction support behind us.

      Scott Page said that the model is much more advanced than Munger’s. It introduced mathematics and is a formal “theoretical model” used by scholars.

      Scott Page is the head of the Complexity Research Center at the University of Michigan, known for his research and modeling of the diversity and complexity of the social sciences.

      After extensive research, the professor found:

      People who think with models continue to surpass those who do not use models;

      People who master multiple models continue to surpass those who master a single model.

      So, in Model Thinking , Page explains 24, 50 models , these models are sufficient for life and work All scenarios of : from the normal distribution and power-law distribution that most people seem to understand, to the “spreading model” in marketing and viral transmission, studying the steady state and “fate” of “Marco “Cardiff model” covers all aspects of study, work, and life.

      Here, I would like to use a model in the book as an example to let everyone feel the power of thinking mode.

      This model has a very interesting name, Rebellion Model . 02 What is The riot model ?

      • Everyone has a threshold for participation. For example, retro styles have become popular this winter. The threshold for collocation is 100: this means that when I see 100 people start participating in retro collocation, I will also participate.

        Want to follow fashion trends? Should you join Bitcoin? Do you even want to stand up and applaud when you are in the theater? And so on, you can use the riot model for analysis.

        So in the workplace, how can we use the “riot model” to achieve the purpose of promotion and salary increase?

        As mentioned earlier, the riot model requires a threshold for participation, as well as the participation of different groups.

        For the sake of illustration, let ’s assume that there is such a financial officerThe company is responsible for expense accounting, and is responsible for reviewing tedious expense reimbursement vouchers, bookkeeping, issuing expense reports, providing expense analysis data to other departments, and so on.

        Fang Fang finds her job boring, but she does n’t know when she will leave. According to the “riot model” , she can set herself a “participation threshold” .

        For example, if the company’s annual turnover cannot guarantee a 20% growth rate for five years, then Fangfang starts to consider leaving.

        Fangfang will not leave before this threshold is reached. So, what changes does she need to make to improve her ability in the workplace? 03 In the position of Fangfang, there are three types of groups:

        • A group of investors represented by the company’s shareholders, they hope that the less the fee, the better, because the less the fee, the company’s profit will be the largest, and the dividend will be the most;

        • The other type of management is represented by middle and senior executives of the company, and they hope to give certain convenience in reimbursement to the extent permitted by the guidelines;

        • There is another type of company employees, they do not have much concept of company expenses, such as grass-roots salesmen, etc., all they care about is whether the money paid by them can be reimbursed, whether there are corresponding subsidies for business travel, etc. .

          The three types of groups have different perspectives, and their views and attitudes on expense reimbursement will naturally not be the same. If Fangfang wants to have a good performance in the company, he can use the “riot model” to improve the work content. And design.

          For example, according to the company’s previous reimbursement system, some regulations were ambiguous. Grass-roots salespeople had a weak awareness of invoices and even reimbursed them with receipts. The company’s middle and senior management tried to find all kinds of invoices by the end of the year. Come to finance reimbursement of various expenses; shareholders are somewhat dissatisfied with this matter, but they dare not say it is too heavy, not to mention there is no real evidence …

          At this time, Fangfang wants to make some achievements, how to start?

          With the “riot model”, Fangfang has a clever idea.

          Originally, with the upgrade of the tax system, tax authorities require the accounting of major companies to be standardized, and all data in the later period will be networked nationwide. Once abnormal data is found, it will have an adverse impact on the company. When necessary, it may even affect some companies. The company uses tax audits.

          This is clearly a “riot incident.”

          • At this time, Fangfang can take advantage of this opportunity to do ideological work for the company’s management, especially the boss, and use reason to show affection and let them understand the standard reimbursement. Significance; when the management’s relevant consciousness comes up, new reimbursement rules will be implemented “from top to bottom”; how to formulate this new rule and how to define the ambiguous business in the past is left to the discretion of the Finance Department.

            Next, the leadership of the Finance Department will inevitably attach importance to this matter. As an expense accountant, Fang Fang is supposed to undertake the drafting of new regulations on expense reimbursement, as well as summarize the company’s expense data over the years to check for abnormalities. Situation, and give preliminary solutions, and so on.

            At this time, Fangfang can take advantage of the “riot” to take a step forward. That is to communicate with the financial manager, and propose to the manager the company’s financial budget work in response to the gap in the company’s budget work— — For the financial manager, this will undoubtedly add glory to TA’s year-end report.

            Driven by the entire company from top to bottom, Fang Fang seems to have “adapted” to revise the previous reimbursement rules, began to popularize common sense of reimbursement for grass-roots salespersons, and optimize the financial reimbursement process to ambiguous business. Redefinition was carried out, monitoring of the budgetary work of various departments began, and so on.

            • Taking advantage of this “riot”, Fangfang’s business level and ability has undoubtedly been greatly improved, she is no longer As in the past, I will only passively review documents and perform simple bookkeeping, but I am involved in related financial management.

              If the company ’s operating income continues to develop steadily in the next five years, Fang Fang will have more opportunities; even if the company cannot develop steadily, according to Fang Fang’s training and growth in the company, he will then move to another company , You can challenge higher positions …

              Through this case, can you feel the power of the “riot model”? 04 Models and practical scenarios similar to this, there are many more in the book Model Thinking.

              • There are so many concepts in the world. Instead of always using concepts that can only explain a few things and phenomena, it is better to learn these 24 models. Deal with all scenarios of life and work.

                A person’s head has only a fixed number of neurons and axons, but a group can continuously obtain breakthroughs in ability by gathering members with different abilities.

                In other words, Group capability = individual combat capability + diversity of member capabilities.

                If there are both economists, physicists, and even sociologists and anthropologists on the team, they can use their capabilities to combine multiple models to solve almost all problems.