Reframing the Question (#26)
We talked earlier about looking for opportunities in crisis (Post #7) and it is worth revisiting. There are lots of opportunities in crises. You just have to know where to look. Recently Matt Nichols posed in a comment on one of the posts, rather than asking, "Is your restaurant ready to serve 25 percent of its capacity for a year?" Restaurants should ask themselves, "Are we ready to sell 75 percent of our meals as takeaway or delivery for a year?" Matt reframed the question. Reframing the question is yet another way to look for opportunities in the crisis.
The whole point of reframing is not to find the correct problem but, instead, to examine if there is a better issue to solve. Problems are typically multifaceted and can be tackled in many ways; there is rarely one way to solve a problem.
When I was a cadet at West Point, I interviewed for a high ranking job my senior year. One of the questions in the interview was “How would you stop cadets in the stands during football games from “surfing” in the crowd and potentially having a debilitating accident whenever the band played the theme to Hawaii 5-0?” I thought about it a second and answered, “Well, I’d just ask the band to stop playing the theme to Hawaii 5-0.” It wasn’t the answer the interviewers were looking for (they wanted to hear how I was going to inspirationally lead my fellow cadets to not “surf”), but it accomplished the mission. I had reframed the question and found an easy way to prevent cadet “surfing” accidents. Although I still remember the answer, I didn’t get the job.
There are three ways to think about reframing your question.
Brainstorm ideas on how to ask the question. The answer to your question typically revolves around what question is posed. The answer you get when you ask “How do we give Bob a bonus for his outstanding performance?” is different then when you ask “How do we recognize Bob in a meaningful way for his outstanding performance?” Matt’s example in the first paragraph was an example of finding a different way to ask the question.
Brainstorm bad ideas. Develop a list of bad solutions to your question, the more ridiculous the better. The ridiculous solutions help you see how to push the boundaries on the solutions that you have subconsciously imposed. For instance, back on how to recognize Bob, a ridiculous solution could be “To throw a party for Bob with ponies and a petting zoo.” But that answer leads to a better solution which is “Give Bob a day off in recognition of his outstanding performance, so he can spend time on his family farm.”
List all the assumptions around the question. Then list all the opposites to the assumptions. Apple is great at this. The iPod was created because Apple relooked the assumption that people were content lugging around CDs. Instead they asked wouldn’t people want to be able to carry “1,000 songs in your pocket?” The coronavirus has forced lots of organizations to do this too. Just look at the sports leagues — who would have thought the NBA would bring 22 teams to Orlando to play a shortened season and playoffs without fans. And the season won’t end until October? Lots of assumptions were challenged and broken to put together a NBA championship in 2020.
Reframing the question gives you another way to look for opportunities in a crisis. How have you reframed the question for your team? Post it in the comments.