The three ways to avoid frame
blindness are conducting a frame audit, identifying and changing inadequate
frames, and mastering techniques for re-framing. Conducting a frame audit
revolves around viewing the frames of others and understanding what’s important
to them. Once this is determined, it will be easier to understand how and why
they make the decisions that they do. Our organization had a mandatory exercise
for each operational department called Connections.
Managers from the same department got together and shared personal stories,
values, and life experiences with one another. This exercise was meant to help
these departments connect on a different level and help understand what drives
the decision-making process of each person, based on their values, past experience,
etc. It not only helped build relationships but opened the eyes of each
individual participating. This helped me understand my own framing process and
the process of others.
Identifying inadequate frames in
my organization and personal life meant that I had to evaluate myself and seek
feedback from others. One of exercises I did at work, with the help of my
manager, was to seek feedback from my co-workers about my strengths,
opportunities, decision-making process, and personality and use it to become a
better leader. When getting this feedback, it’s hard to come to the realization
that some of the frames were not needed, some were unbalanced, and some needed
adjusting. I had assumptions about processes and other co-workers that were
preventing me from establishing better relationships. The way I was measuring
success and productivity in departments was different than what the
organization was looking for.
Mastering techniques for
re-framing is enjoyable. Last year when I started with Target I had been placed
in a role to manage 30 team members in an environment that was foreign to me. I
had good relationships but felt that I should know their jobs and what they
deal with on a daily basis to better understand their decision-making process,
essentially, using multiple frames. I chose to job shadow each and every one of
them in different functions to learn their job, identify obstacles, and help
them through them productively. At the end of the 4-week process, I even challenged
some of them to a productivity race to see who could earn the highest
productivity in a set amount of time. This helped tremendously with viewing
other people’s frames and walking through the decision-making process with
them.
One of the biggest benefits of
this exercise was being able to see how deep decision-making processes go in
organizations. Values, experiences, and personality all contribute to the
decision-making process, and if you are disconnected from others than it’s hard
to view their frames and understand them. I think that the biggest factor that
has helped me is establishing relationships with those who I work with and
interact with often. These relationships help understand the thought process of
one another, and allow some understanding of values and experiences that contribute
to decisions-making. This exercise has helped me realize that I fall into frame
blindness more than I think, mainly due to the assumptions that I have. It’s so
easy to make assumptions about other people and processes at work, based on
what you may or may not know. I feel that it will help me with asking more
open-ended questions to individuals to reduce assumptions and allow a better
understanding of their thought processes.
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