Re-framing reframing
Saving a concept from its consultant version
Some concepts follow the Pareto Principle, also known as the 80/20 rule: With 20% of the effort you get 80% of the value. In this case, most of the time it does not make sense to go beyond 20% of attention — you grab what you can and move on. The world is messy anyways, so aiming at perfection would be pointless.
This is great for consultants and trainers: The basics can be copy/pasted easily, and you do not need to be an expert to teach them. It is hard for someone else to hold you accountable, as the center is pretty clear, but the edges are not. If something remains unclear or does not work, well, it must have been at the edge! Written like that, it is obvious that this kind of teaching has a natural upper limit of usefulness, and that people will have a natural upper limit of how much they are willing to consume of it.
Other concepts are like drinkable water. 99% drinkable water is still 0% drinkable. Either it’s 100% or nothing. This sounds very unattractive to tackle und unrealistic to implement. People who advocate for 100% solutions sound like extremists. But as the case of drinkable water shows, it is both valuable and possible to go for 100% sometimes.
I have the impression that too many important concepts of the last years have fallen victim to being put into the Pareto drawer. It is time to get them out of it again.
Let’s start with “reframing”. As with many of these terms, it seems be in danger of becoming overused. Nevertheless, a more precise description is that a watered down version is featured everywhere. This sounds smart by the people using it but is ineffective and creates allergic reactions by the affected persons both to the concept and to anything new to consider. The bastard version of reframing sounds like “just look positively at everything” and “you just have to see it in another way”. It is a version of the blame game: People are wrong, it is their fault, all problems are not real but just caused by people seeing with the wrong eyes.
My — very informal — explanation of reframing is:
- Being aware that we often apply automatic filters when looking at something
- Deliberately choosing a different filter
- Reflecting
Bob Galen recently wrote about reframing for Agile Coaches. I invite everyone to compare his description to mine!
Instead of fighting about the best definition, I want to look at some nuances that get lost easily: First, it would be bad if the new filter would be used just for creating another single picture with the assumption of “absolute truth”. How often are new trends in the organization of knowledge work treated like this? Think of “Agile”, “Product”, “AI”…
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Second, I perceived an antipattern of labeling certain filters as “good” and others as “bad”. My favorite example is that holding a pessimistic view is bad and that everyone needs to switch to an optimistic look at the world. This itself is nothing but a filter as well!
Two switch it around:
- Optimists can drown in half full bathtubs. (Source: Satire magazine Der Postillon, 2011.)
- Considering the glass half empty is great. This means it can be refilled!
As I have written before, in reality it is the combination of optimism and pessimism that creates great outcomes. Preaching to pessimists that they have to become optimists completely misses the point.
Third, reframing shall not be regarded as moving from one view to another only. Reframing is most powerful when you can switch back and forth deliberately, to the point that both interpretations of reality are present at the same time, their contradicting signals not confusing you but giving light to a deeper truth. (And yes, a certain famous quote about this topic really is from F. Scott Fitzgerald!)
I remember a manager who was a master in this discipline. When it would have been easy to follow the flow, he challenged everyone to take the not-so-obvious view:
- What good did we learn from this incident?
- What could we overlook with this success?
Everyone got a chance to stay sharp, to not become either scared and disheartened by setbacks or overconfident and complacent by successes. These days, I find myself using this low barrier, easy-to-use mental switch very often.
So here it is, a concept that I have successfully woven into my everyday work life, and something that no consultant, slide deck or TED talk could convince me of. This is one of the cases where I need the 100%.
Bright Eyes: First Day of My Life
