Premise:
One of the primary responsibility of a leader is to be able to make sense of all the information and changes that is happening all around us and in our environment and decide how to respond to them.
As leaders, we are also responsible in guiding our teams solve problems as we go along. One of the biggest mistakes that one does when trying to solve problems is not spending enough time understanding and exploring the problem itself.
One way to explore the problem or situation so that we understand them better is to look at them through different perspectives.
One way to do so is to look at the problem using different lenses as James Gilmore wrote in his book Look (you can find my learning from that book here). Another way is to reframe the situations or the problem statement.
Here are 25 different ways to reframe any given problem or a situation as shared by Stephen Shapiro in his book Invisible Solutions. He divides them into 5 groups and 5 different ways to reframe under each group.
Reduce Abstraction:
The lenses designed to reduce abstraction are geared toward making questions more specific when they are too broad. When your challenge statement is overly large, broad, or abstract, these lenses will help you bring it down to earth.
#1: Leverage
Solve for the Greatest Impact Use This Lens. You can use this lense when your question is too abstract. You can ask:
1. What is the one factor that will have the greatest impact?
2. What gives us the greatest leverage in solving this challenge?
3. If we could only solve one aspect of this problem, which one will give us the biggest impact?
#2: Deconstruct
This lens allows us to break the problem into smaller parts. We can use this frame when the problem we are facing is broad with no clear leverage points. You can ask:
1. What are the parts or components that comprise this
2. What are the steps of the process?
3. What are the different segments that comprise the problem?
Once we have the components, we can then use the leverage lens as well. At the same time, we need to be cognisant of the interdependencies as well.
#3: Reduce
We can use this to drop expectations or simplify things. We use this lens when we see there is too much complexity and stretch targets are not producing desired results. You can ask:
1. How might lowering our goals and expectations give us a better result?
2. How can reducing a target create new opportunities for growth?
3. How can simplification increase usability and accessibility?
#4: Eliminate
We can use this lens to get rid of unwanted stuff. We can use this lens when an activity does not produce sufficient value or to explore what would result if we eliminated the challenge or the problem en masse. You can ask:
1. How can this be eliminated altogether? What would need to happen to make this disappear?
2. What parts or components can we eliminate?
#5: Hyponym
We use this lens to leverage the power of language by using very specific words in defining the problem or challenge. We can use this lens when the words in our problems are too broad or at very high level. You can ask:
1. Is there a more specific word that can replace the more generic word in the problem (ex, moving from flower to Rose or Jasmine).
Increase Abstraction:
We use this group of reframes when the challenge statement is overly specific or already predisposed to a specific kind of solutions. These allow us to explore different aspects of the challenge.
#6: Analogy
This is about finding something similar to the problem we are trying to solve. We use this lens when you’ve been recycling the same old solutions again and again. It allows you find a solution or ideas for a solution for an existing problem elsewhere. You can ask:
1. What is this like?
2. Who else has faced and / or solved a problem like this?
#7: Result
This lens is all about focusing on the end result that we are trying to achieve and working backwards from there on. We can use this lens when our question is too focused on an activity rather than on the goal. The focus of this reframe is to move away from goals towards activities. You can ask:
1. What does this make possible?
2. What is the desired outcome here?
3. What do we want to see happen here?
#8: Concern Reframe:
This reframe converts concerns into questions. We use this when colleagues keep finding reasons why ideas or solutions will not work. You can ask:
1. How can we make this work?
2. What would it take to make this work?
3. Who needs to support or sign off on this to make this work?
#9: Stretch
Use this frame when we want to stretch our people’s thinking or gaols. We can use this lens when we are stuck looking at small incremental solutions that will not move the need by much. You can ask:
1. Are we shooting for a high enough goal?
2. Is the goal we are working towards worthy of our efforts?
#10: Hypernym
This reframe is all about using the power of language by using broader words to broaden the challenge or problem. We can use this lens when our problem is too specific. You can ask:
1. How can we use a word that is less specific that the one that is already being used (from Rose to Flower)
Change Perspective:
This set of reframes allow us to look at the problem or the situation from a completely fresh set of eyes. This allows us to potentially look at things we might have missed the first time around.
#11: Resequence
This reframe is about changing the sequence in which the problem is viewed or solved or decision is made. We can use this lens when your challenge implies some sort of timing or involves a sequence of steps. You can ask:
1. How can we delay a decision until later or much earlier in the process?
2. How and which steps can we perform in parallel?
#12: Reassign
This is about rethinking who needs to do the work or make the decision. We can use this lens when our challenge relies on the work or decision of a specific person. You can ask:
1. Who else could perform this?
2. How can someone else be equipped to perform this?
3. Can we outsource this to a software algorithm or a robot or to someone else?
#13: Access
This reframe is all about ownership – who owns the process or the problem or the responsibility to solve the problem. You can use this lens when the challenge revolves primarily around this ownership. You can ask:
1. How can we change the ownership?
2. How can we move away from ownership to access or rent or subscribe or other ways to access?
#14: Emotion
This reframe is about using emotions and generating emotional response within the people working on the problem. You can use this lens when your challenge lacks emotional content. You can ask:
1. How might we “wow” the users?
2. How might we make this painful for the users?
3. How might we surprise the users?
#15: Substitute
This reframe is all about replacing something within the challenge with something else. We can use this lens when we are looking for a fresh perspective. You can ask:
1. How can we swap out one or more words in the problem statement with different words?
2. How can we substitute any element of the challenge with anything else?
Switch Elements:
Some challenges can be reframed simply by switching from one parameter to another. Once the focus on what needs to be solved for changes, the solutions change with it.
#16: Flip
This is about solving for a different factor. You can use this lens when you have multiple factors influencing the problem or challenge. You can ask:
1. How can we turn the problem upside down by improving a different aspect of the problem than the original problem?
#17: Conflicts
This is about amplifying certain attributes against some other competing attributes. We can use this lens when the successful resolution of our problem is determined by multiple influential factors. You can ask:
1. What happens when we use “AND” to embrace multiple conflicts when trying to solve the problem?
2. How might we solve this problem if the conflict is amplified?
#18: Performance Paradox
We can use this reframe when we are trying to move our focus away from our goals or when we are having trouble hitting our goals. You can ask:
1. What else can we focus on achieving?
2. What other goals when achieved, would make this worthwhile for us
#19: Pain Vs Gain
We use this lens when we are trying to motivate using pain or gains (carrot or stick) to drive positive outcome. You could ask:
1. What is currently painful that we need to remove?
2. What might be lost if we dont solve this problem?
3. What will we gain by solving this problem?
#20: Bad Idea
Oftentimes we have seen the seed of a great idea present in a terrible idea. We can use this reframe to explore this and specifically when everyone is looking for great solutions only and there is a lot of judgement of ideas being discussed. You can ask:
1. What would be a terrible way to solve this problem? And then how can we change or alter this idea to make it better?
2. What would be a terrible way to solve this problem? Would the opposite of this make it into a viable solution?
Zero-in on an opportunity
When we are not sure if we are hitting the right target, these lenses will help us zone in on the right targets to go after. Ideally speaking, these should be applied every time.
#21: Real Problem
In most cases, the problems that are presented to us are never the real problems. They are symptoms of a problem that has occured elsewhere in the system. This reframe allows us to examine our assumptions about the problem and get to the root of the real problem that needs to be solved. You could ask:
1. Is this the real problem or is there an underlying problem that needs to be addressed first?
2. Are we causing the real problem or is this only a symptom? Why is this the case? And then ask why until we uncover the real problem.
#22: Real Business
Sometimes, we need to reframe which industry or business are we a part of to get a fresh perspective on the problem we are trying to solve. We can use this lens to examine our assumptions about the industry we are operating in. You can ask:
1. What business are we really in? Who are our competitors? Who are our allies or partners?
2. What or who can make us irrelevant?
#23: Insights
We can use this lens when any additional information or insights about the situation can be helpful in solving the problem. You can ask:
1. Is there any further data that can help us gain insights into either understanding the problem better or a better solution?
2. What insight would help us reframe the problem?
#24: Variations
We can use this reframe when we want to avoid one size fits all assumptions and when our question implies that all customers or situations can be treated the same. You can ask:
1. How can we design a solution to handle the exception, not for the exception?
2. How can we create multiple variations that serve different needs differently?
#25: Observation
We use this reframe to uncover hidden and unarticulated needs and when historical data is not enough. You can ask:
1. Instead of asking our customers what they want, can we instead observe them in their natural environment?
In conclusion:
In conclusion, I would only say that we are built to answer any question that we ask of ourselves. So, the quality of our answers are completely dependent upon the questions that we ask of ourselves. So, if we do not like the answers we get, we need to change the questions we ask.
The true power of a reframe comes when we are able to combine many of these together to look at the problem and the solution from different perspectives and then pick the most impactful and easiest to implement solution.
