A632.3.4.RB - Reflections on Decision Making

A632.3.4.RB - Reflections on Decision Making

Shoemaker and Russo (in Hoch) discuss the hazards associated with "frame blindness" and how to guard against them. 

Discuss three ways you can avoid "framing traps" and provide a detailed example of each from your life experience. 

Hoch says that [b]eing unaware of our frames poses an enormous risk. All too often, managers look out at the world through one mental window and fail to notice the views offered by other windows. (Hoch, et al., 2001) The first example I have to share is of the Illusion of Completeness – the idea that we have the complete picture of what is going on. This week I was able to have my first one-on-one with my new manager. She and I didn’t really have an agenda for this meeting, just a “get to know you” and I suspect to “feel each other out.” Back tracking a bit, when I first learned that I was going to be moving to a different team, purchasing standards instead of the big sexy structures, I was not happy about it. I was almost belligerent in my internally forming opinions, blind to what the real reasons for the transition were and the opportunities for growth that were clearly visible. I was ornery and stubborn because I had finally found a team and a niche that I enjoyed again. (Moving to Boeing South Carolina had been a rough transition.) Forgetting that change is the only constant at Boeing and that with each change I grow in my overall knowledge of the organization, I did the mental version of crossing my arms over my chest, sticking out my lower lip and pouting like a petulant child. This was not an overly becoming look for me. In the midst of all of this, I found out that my new manager was a young temp-manager I immediately rolled my eyes and came up with all of these negative thoughts and reasons why this was going to be awful.

“I don’t want to have to break in another new up and coming manager.”

“She looks old enough to be my daughter – ugh.”

“Why me?”

All of these things reflecting back to me my insecurities – personal and professional. For all of my talk about women in business needing to build each other up and support one another, I sure jumped on the “bash the new girl” bandwagon easily. I was so ashamed of myself. I recognized that ugliness for what it was and set out changing my attitude. I needed to walk the talk and stop feeling sorry for myself.

Back to the one-on-one I had with my new manager on Monday: She is awesome. She has a great sense of humor, is legit smart and has a wealth of experience. We talked about leadership as women in business and what that means to us. We talked about this class and how to make decisions with all stakeholders in mind. She talked to me about pointers on how to frame my questions and conversations to our suppliers. We talked about frames and how they related to decision making. I repeat, she is awesome. I could not have asked for a better manager – temp or no. I am optimistic and open minded about this change again. I have also seen my ugly frame blindness up close and really need to keep that side of me in check. It isn’t dignified or authentic.  I definitely should have framed this situation in a more mature and organizationally minded place. Be on guard about the false sense of completeness that any frame will offer. Try to see the gaps and limitations of the frame as well as why it fits. (Hoch, et al., 2001)

Another example of frame blindness - specifically Overconfidence about Our View - happened about eleven years ago. I was working for an electrical components warehouse as a vendor managed inventory coordinator with three specialists under me, and over 60 customers to deliver parts to – most of them weekly – and the route was from Bellingham, WA (border of US/Canada) and Vancouver, WA (almost to the Oregon border). It was exhilarating – we were experimenting with different ways to use RFID tags and scanning to control inventory and to give the customer more visibility on their usage metrics – helping them forecast their needs. I was on top of the world, I thought I was untouchable, my boss had just given me the biggest raise I’d ever had to that point and I had an incredible amount of autonomy to do my job the way I saw fit. The only problem is that I only saw this job from my frame. I didn’t see it from the customer’s frames, or the organizations frames. I had tunnel-vision and was zooming through that tunnel at top speed not caring if there was a train heading my way. I made a couple mistakes in ordering material that put the warehouse in a bind and while I apologized and owned my mistake, it still didn’t bode well with the manager of the warehouse. I can see now that if I had looked through his frame – I would have seen that using his resources that were already tasked with other time-sensitive work – was a hardship on him and that I should have used better discretion when creating big orders for them to pull. That was just one of a few critical mistakes I made thinking that no one mattered more than my work. I was asked to step down from being the coordinator and back to being a specialist. I was absolutely thrown. It took me a long time to be able to look at the whole situation objectively and I could see where I was wrong. I could have framed that whole time as being the coordinator much more objectively. I should have framed it with the organization in mind – been a better steward to the individual departments I impacted and worked to ensure that everything I did was as beneficial to all stakeholders as possible. 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, et al., 2001)

Both of these examples remind me of how far I have to go. The realization that I was reverting back to a negative reaction to a new leader made me understand that being a leader is about constant work on who we are and how we frame ourselves to align with our organizations. Just when I think I’m on a good path – a positive path to leadership – I stumble and have to pick gravel out of my ego for a while so that I can see how far I still have to go. I’m glad that I realized my reaction to my new manager was more about me and less about her before I met with her one-on-one. Viewing the world through just our own individual frames is not only sure to cause frame blindness but it will inhibit our growth as leaders and decision makers. Stepping outside of our personal frames is essential to growing as a person and as a leader.

References:

Hoch, S. J., Kunreuther, H., Gunther, R. E., & Wharton School. (2001). Wharton on making decisions. New York: Wiley.