Avoiding framing traps
If you’ve concluded
you need to prepare and protect yourself from misusing frames, please keep
reading. The following three examples are cases in which I failed to avoid
framing traps in my life and I think it could help you to understand where I
went wrong. Frames are crucial because they simplify and focus our attention on
what we deem is most relevant, making it possible to decide more quickly and
efficiently than with widespread attention (Hoch,
Kunreuther, & Gunther, 2001, p. 133).
Example 1 – Airport
Maintenance Manager
During my
time as a maintenance manager at the airport, I fell pray to frame blindness
many times. I had not yet fully understood all the elements of the budgeting
process and because of this, I made several errors because I was only seeing
things through one frame of view in my maintenance world. Being unaware of our frames poses an enormous risk (Hoch, Kunreuther, & Gunther, 2001, p. 139).
As an airport maintenance manager, I oversaw 80 separate contracts for
parts and services that kept the fleet of specialized airport maintenance
equipment in service. With a budget of $10 million annually, it was a lot of
manage, but overall, I did well. However, frame blindness was my downfall,
because I was too shortsighted to see how my budget effected other departments.
I didn’t ask the right questions to the other departments and I certainly didn’t
make the right choices. The risks associated with not properly understanding my
budget was significant, but not critical. Luckily, we have many different gate
checks during the budgeting process, so most of the risk was just me looking
stupid. As this was 10 years ago, I didn’t fully grasp the frame I was using
and failed to consider the trap of frame blindness.
I should have conducted a frame audit so that I would have seen the
blindness in my view. A frame audit begins with surfacing your own or your organization’s
frame or frames, understanding the frames of others and developing an
appreciation of newly emerging frames (Hoch,
Kunreuther, & Gunther, 2001, p. 142). I think that I would have seen
my ignorance front and center using this technique. It is exciting to think
about how I’ve recently learned more about frames and the enhanced decision-making
that comes with it.
Example 2 – Self-made
idealist
I have been
called an idealist by my friends and family. I have a penitence for believing in
the best outcomes, which also leads to my downfall with overconfidence. Most of us suffer from a well-documented tendency to overestimate
what we know, which contributes to our tendency to overvalue the relevance of
our own frames and undervalue the relevance of others (Hoch, Kunreuther, & Gunther, 2001, p. 140). The
most recent example of losing focus through overconfidence was when I
miscalculated our family budget. I have been doing our family’s budgeting since
my wife and I were married 10 years ago. With the sudden drop in interest
rates, I decided to apply for a home equity line of credit (HELOC) to pay down
some high interest credit cards. I relied on the experience I gained from doing
our budget all those years and applied that same methodology to the HELOC. My
overconfidence in my budgeting skills created several misses when we were going
through the process with the credit union. I failed to understand several key
points in the process, which caused a significant delay in getting our loan. I
was too locked into my way of doing things that I shutout the loan officer and
assumed I knew it all. Often, failure to convince someone of your point
of view occurs because your frame differs from theirs (Hoch, Kunreuther, & Gunther, 2001, p. 153). I should have stopped,
paused and realized that I needed to speak to myself in a different frame. Being
an idealist can lead to overconfidence, and in this case, cost us .25% on the interest
rate because of the delay. The risk in being overconfident cost us in the long
run, but once again opened my eyes to the need to be more cautious in my thinking.
I was biased then, and I’m probably biased now, but I’ve learned that I need to
do a better job at seeing things through other’s frames. I could have
Example 3 – Real
Estate Manager
I recently
took on another role in addition to my current job in business development for
the airport. I now oversee all the Real Estate department functions at the airport,
and it is not an easy job. I didn’t know the first thing about real estate and
now I’m having to lead a team of professionals that knew more than me. This was
a difficult position for me, as I’m always trying to be a high performer and I
want to know the ins and outs of my job. I strive to be the best at what I do,
even when I don’t know the subject. My downfall with this transition was that I
had concentrated too much on learning my craft that I didn’t change my frame
for this new job. Be aware of situations in which a radically changed business environment
necessitates the construction of an entirely new frame (Hoch, Kunreuther, & Gunther, 2001, p. 153).
In this case, I should have made a better attempt at seeing the bigger
picture and understand that the situation needed a different frame of view. We
must constantly challenge our own frames (Hoch, Kunreuther, & Gunther,
2001, p. 146). There are a lot of fascinating ways to look at the world around
us and the decisions we make. The more I learn about these frames, the more
compelled I am to make changes. I think the risk with not using a new frame in
my new job is that I didn’t adapt as fast as I could have. I would have had
more knowledge of my job, more input in the decision-making processes around me
and ultimately, I would have been better at what I do. I learned a valuable
lesson in that I don’t have to always fall back on old ways of doing things and
that includes how I frame my decisions.
Conclusion
Managers can
consciously control their frames, rather than to be controlled by them and even
use framing to their advantage (Hoch,
Kunreuther, & Gunther, 2001, p. 141). The more complex the
decision-making process, the more important it is to use frames to understand
the myriad number of options. I will be using frames more often now that I
understand these concepts.
References
Hoch, S., Kunreuther, H., & Gunther, R. (2001). Wharton
on making decisions. New York: Wiley.
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