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Reflections on Decision Making


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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