Shoemaker
and Russo discuss the hazards associated with "frame
blindness" and how to guard against it. Discuss three ways you can
avoid "framing traps" and provide a detailed example of
each from your life experience.
Could
you have framed each situation differently? What did the exercise teach you
about complex decision-making? What additional tools or "frames"
would've helped you through the process? How much "risk" do you feel
was in your recommendation? What did you learn about yourself through this
exercise?
Frame
blindness according to Shoemaker and Russo that simply being unaware of our
frames can be an enormous risk. Furthermore as stated in Hoch (2001,) it is
managers who run the greatest risk of viewing things via only one mental window
often failing to see the views that can be seen if looking out other windows at
their disposal. In my opinion this equates to basically having blinders on such
as a horse might wear during a race to keep it focused on the task at hand and
not be distracted by outside influences. This condition would be detrimental to
a manager, or anybody who must see and act from differing perspectives.
Frame
blindness in my opinion and experience can be avoided through several methods.
I will discuss three:
Avoid
the trappings of “my way or the high way”. Individuals who are accustomed to
this manner of thinking and leadership can be summed-up as suffering from a
Neapolitan complex, whereby they must always be correct, leaders who subscribe
to this toxic type of leadership are overconfident and extremely judgmental
toward those who would challenge their authority.
I
have learned that it is impossible to reason, discuss or correct an individual
of this caliper. The best thing to do is keep your distance and limit contact. When
contact is inevitable, limit it to the situation at hand and utilize only fact-based
answers with supporting documentation. Keep opinions to ones self and avoid
discussion contentious issues not relevant to the topic at hand.
Another situation of frame
blindness is “groupthink”. Groupthink is another toxic situation, whereby the
practice of thinking or making decisions as a group in a way that discourages
creativity or individual responsibility. There’s
always a danger of groupthink when two leaders are so alike.
My
experience of groupthink can be attributed to addressing a problem or situation
that has been allowed to exist prior to my affiliation with the organization.
The organization was regulatory not in compliance and my addressing of the
situation including the fact based data showing the discrepancy could possibly
mean that years of collected data might be inaccurate. Groupthink came to full
circle, protecting the sanctity of the established by successfully shooting the
messenger and desecrating the message.
What
would have helped if I knew that my supervisor had my back (he did not,) and
that I could count on him for support in the meeting that I announced the
discrepancy and proposed corrective action. Unfortunately there are times you
must stand your ground… alone and do your due diligence, other wise you become
one of the mindless sheep and quite possible culpable in not addressing an
issue that may have safety, financial or proprietary concerns at stake.
The third and final method
of frame blindness is “that’s the way we have always done it”. Never in my life
have I witnessed so narrow-mindedness as individuals or groups that refuse to
change or improve with the times. In my opinion it is attributed to mostly
laziness, that if could be convinced without conflict might see the new method
could be a vast improvement and actually create an easier and more enjoyable
working experience.
My experience with this is
you must slowly introduce changes utilizing a timeline of milestone to gauge
successful deployment of a change to a policy, regulation, or program. That in
the end could have been implemented quickly and completely, possibly saving
time, money and conflict.
Reference:
Hoch, S., Kunreuther, H.,
& Gunther, R. (2001). Wharton on Making decisionsdoi:www.wiley.com
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