May 30, 2010 52 Comments

Frames and Assumptions

stone frame I was talking with Rob Hatch about his experience with Touchpoints, an approach to help child development practitioners work with children and families. In that system, there are “assumptions” and “principles.” This has me thinking about how Julien and I talk about “frames,” and frameworks, and how this all applies to human business.

In Touchpoints, an assumption is “The parent is the expert on his/her child.” This means, no matter what you know as a pediatrician, you’re still not the expert of THAT child. You know stuff. The parent knows that child. See the difference?

Squint a bit, and you could say “you are an expert on YOU.” Meaning, you know more about yourself than a doctor, than a teacher, than anyone. In this case, we’ve shifted the frame from “parent” or “child developer” into “person,” and the assumption is still usable.

You with me?

Frames and Assumptions

Think of a frame as “a perspective, with boundaries.” So, when I frame myself as running a media company, it gives me a way of thinking and creating assumptions for my business. If I just framed myself as a blogger, those assumptions are quite different.

We haven’t talked about principles. Principles don’t change. They’re something we apply to various situations. One of my principles is “be helpful.” In all circumstances, I ask myself is there’s a way to be helpful. So, presuming you have a sense of the principles by which you live and operate, then what you can work with are your frames and your assumptions.

Set Your Frames

The single-most powerful thing I do with all things business and self-improvement is to start by setting my frame.

When I took my role at CrossTech Media, I was hired to build out their strategy and grow the business. I pushed everything through the frame of, “I’m here to grow this business.” It was a great way to stay on target, and a great way to look at the opportunities.

Set your frame. Consider who you are and your role in the situations that matter the most to you. At home, how do you frame yourself? What are the right assumptions to carry that frame? At work, same thing. Now more so, do you frame yourself around your place of employment? I say no, by the way.

Your frame is around you. You’re the CEO of your future (or pick a title that you love). And now? Let’s go one layer deeper.

Re-Set Your Frames

One thing where people get tripped up is that we have to re-set our frames from time to time. I’d argue that we have to reset them often. For instance, at CrossTech, I went from being VP of strategy to telling my bosses that I wanted to take over a division and run it as my own company. That’s certainly a bit different than my frame of “define strategy and grow the business.” I changed my frame and decided I’d frame around “do social media marketing well.”

Resetting your frame is so important to your development. I think we get locked up in keeping our old frames around, especially when we consider our job to be the same as our frame. I’m a newspaper reporter; I can’t find work as a newspaper reporter (versus “I’m a content developer; there are tons of jobs for me!).

The Assumptions Follow

Once you have a new frame, determine your assumptions, and make sure you stay aware to how they alter your perception. For instance, if you decide you’re a content developer, maybe you’ll assume that you should always be making new media. But that might have you miss a different type of opportunity. Decide how your assumptions will support your efforts.

What Are Your Frames?

What do you consider your frames? Do you anchor your frame currently to your job description? How would things change if you alter that?

And how do your assumptions line up? Have you ever given them much thought? What’s helping or hindering?

Photo credit Katie Tegtmeyer

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  • srinirao

    Chris,

    This is one of my personal favorite posts of all the stuff you've written. I think this applies to more than just careers and jobs, but to life in general. We have so many self perceived “weaknesses” which often are primarily the result of our own frames and assumptions. Yet, in the right context those things can really be some of our greatest strengths. It's interesting that just by shifting the frame that you will come up with a whole new setup of assumptions that often end up being much more empowering and opening up a whole new world of opportunities. Thanks again for a great post. Perfect way to start the morning before I hit the beach.

  • juliensmith

    Great post. You're totally on.

  • http://twitter.com/gialyons Gia Lyons

    Jumping in my personal Way Back machine, this reminds me of some advice I received. I was asked, “What skills and talents do you possess that you enjoy using?” I answered with something like, “I love seeing the little lightbulbs appear above people's heads when I show them something new.” No surprise that I “fell into” a software instructor job after that conversation.

    And to your point of re-framing yourself from time to time, that whole lightbulb thing – to stretch a metaphor – turned into, “I love energizing people about things I'm passionate about.”

    Thanks for reminding me to dust off my frame!

  • GabrielleNYC

    I like the idea of the frame, I like the idea of re-setting even more. Life changes, skills can & should be acquired & adapted so why confine them within the same “old” frame? Everyone should tale a step back & take a good long look, often, stretch their ideas, their horizons & expectations & therefore the frame. A frame should encompass not confine – IMHO

  • http://mydarabell.com/ Dara Bell

    My example is Climate Change you reframe it as say a challenge, break it down into smaller parts. This is what the the inventors of the airplane did. They said two issues were vital the balance and control of the plane. Also knowing how to fly the plane, being pilots. Revolutionaries need to change the lighting, the point of view. Going towards compelling, going towards easy to acheive, going towards colourfulness and eyecatchingness.

    This goes for Climate Change as much as selling your widget to the masses. Good copy as David Oglivy suggests should not be left out in your reframing, although this might include good blogging nowadays.

  • lynnelle

    Resetting frames; reevaluating your assumptions, your paradigms, your business, your life. I love how your writing spans the work / life continuum.

    We all have a number of 'frames', whether we consciously define the parameters or not – they're there. Two points:
    1) Your post is a good encouragement to be aware of the frames by which we live (work, raise our kids, etc.) and
    2) Be aware that some of our life's frames may overlap and others may not. My 'frame' for my business, at times, may be in conflict with my 'frame' for my personal life – as it was when I was getting divorced. Being aware of that helped deal with much of the stress that the conflicting 'frames' created.

    This comment takes it out of the business-only 'frame', but still – I hope, relevant.

  • http://mydarabell.com/ Dara Bell

    The Afterthought
    Great post.

  • http://twitter.com/nickwbennett Nick W Bennett

    “For instance, if you decide you’re a content developer, maybe you’ll assume that you should always be making new media. But that might have you miss a different type of opportunity. Decide how your assumptions will support your efforts.” This makes me think of opportunity cost. As a newbie to blogging/social media I find that I need to wear several hats, yet maintain a strategic focus on how I will build my business. Good read…I can dig it! Seriously, I'm going to Digg this article.
    Now go YouTube 'Amazing Grace – Bagpipes.' Random…but seems fitting on this memorial weekend

  • Rick Hamrick

    The conscious decision to know and determine your frame is a wonderful, life-altering idea, Chris.

    The frame is the context within which you will create your story. Of course, your story has certain limits because of the frame and assumptions, so it is vital, just as you say, to be willing to reframe (“Reset your frames”) when you run into the border of your current frame as you tell your story.

    The frame is the context, and the story is the boss. It can feel a bit weird that way, knowing that the story can cause the frame to be modified so that the new context allows the story to go where it wants to go. I just think of it as the 80-year-long, 24-hours-a-day version of “Lost.”

  • http://www.webconsuls.com Judy Helfand

    Sunday mornings with Chris…you explained that you like to write provocative posts on Sundays, better interaction with your readers. So here goes. You are, I believe, absolutely correct when you say: ” So, presuming you have a sense of the principles by which you live and operate, then what you can work with are your frames and your assumptions.” No one really wants to do business or engage personally with someone without good principles and it is a sad day when you discover that your “assumptions” about another person were wrong and they do not possess good principles. But what I really want to tell you today is this: Sometimes we get stuck with the frames we select. Or at least it seems so.
    My analogy will only make sense if you have been to an opthamologist and the doctor used drops to dilate your eyes for the exam. After the exam the staff tells you to pick out new FRAMES. You do and a day or week later you go to get your new glasses and what do you discover? Your BLURRED ( http://www.chrisbrogan.com/blur/ ) vision affected your ability to select really good or appropriate frames. (Obviously, my psyche was severely imparied from the time I was in 7th grade and picked out the first ugly frames that I then I had to live with for a few years. You know what happens? You keep taking off the glasses and then your perspective is impaired and it can go downhill from there.)
    Thanks to places like LensCrafters you can now come back within 30 days and pick out new FRAMES. But my example above is not too different from what Gia Lyons talked about in her comment. In the corporate world your FRAMES are often determined by a third party, and you have to hope that the FRAMES look good on you, because most corporations don't offer a LensCrafters' unconditional guarantee. Sometimes you just have to keep taking the frames off or wearing them on the top of your head. The problem then is BLURRED vision and missed opportunities.
    P.S. I see Julien commented. He is so succinct. His frames must be perfect!
    P.P.S. I don't work for LensCrafters.

  • http://twitter.com/kfom KevinFerrasciOMalley

    Not sure that I agree that assumptions follow the frame ?

    I think it is pretty hard for most of us to really ever set aside our assumptions. Even when we think we're focusing on the Frame didn't we probably end up choosing the frame based upon our assumptions ?

    Perhaps that is one of the reasons as adults we can find it so frustrating when a child keeps asking us so many why questions ? The child is trying to understand why we say something (i.e our assumptions) and as adults we kind of find it simpler to ignore our own assumptions.

    Great thought provoking post, thanks Chris

    ” We simply assume that the way we see things is the way they really are or the way they should be. And our attitudes and behaviors grow out of these assumptions” Dennis Waitley

  • http://scrapsofmygeeklife.com scrappinmichele

    I am working on something similar right now for a session. I think it is important that we all have a litmus test that we use to decide whether projects, etc fit into our plan.

    We also need to stop thinking that when we change course that we have failed. I like the reframing concept. You don't know what doesn't work and what you don't like until you try it. It isn't a failure, it's a learning experience.

    • http://www.looble.com/ deceth

      It’s still a failure even if you learn from it. I’ve learned that from experience.

      • http://scrapsofmygeeklife.com scrappinmichele

        I don’t agree. The only failures I see are when you stop trying. It’s all in how you view it. When I make a decision to do something, I think, I’m going to do this and if it doesn’t work, then I learned what doesn’t work.

        I’ve started to view things differently because I have this huge fear of failure, so if I stop thinking about every blip as a failure, in my mind it is easier to move on.

  • http://www.superdumbsupervillain.com/ superdumb

    Interesting. I've always eschewed frames for artwork, preferring things unmounted or casually tacked up. Maybe it's time to reevaluate the need for framing. Hmm.

  • http://www.saxondesign.com Pam

    I like the idea of frames and setting my own frames depending upon the task/job/role at-hand. But how about how others frame us in their own minds? Sometimes we have no control over that.

    I recently had an experience where an old best-friend from high school (whom I haven't seen in almost 30 years) made a comment that completely showed me how she framed me in her own mind, and it was all based on what she knew and had experienced about me in high school. In HIGH SCHOOL! In my mind, she couldn't have been more wrong about me, as I am now a responsible adult with much more experience than she is aware of.

    However, the more I considered what she had said, the more I realized that we all do this to one degree or another. I do it when a friend from high school asks to “be my friend” on Facebook. I think about that person from 30 years ago, and make my decision on whether they treated me kindly THEN. If I choose not to friend them, it is because I am framing them as I had experienced them “back then”.

    Yes, it is very important for me to take responsibility for framing myself so I have the right mindset for the task at hand, but there is no guarantee that others will see me in that light. Does this matter? It does to me. I really don't want to be treated like the teenager I was 30 years ago just because of some box someone has placed me in!

    Does this apply? Or am I completely missing the point here?

  • http://principlesoffailure.blogspot.com/ SHerdegen

    I do a lot of work with people building their ability to be visionary. Your vision is how you see the world.

    So, thinking about frames automatically made me think about vision and how they’re connected. If vision is the way we see the world, frames are the way we see our role in it.

    I liked that you brought up assumptions. Our assumptions are too often overlooked and almost always incorrect. @Julien had a great post today about assumptions and things we think we know but really don’t.

    So, assumptions both create and dictate our worldview in this manner: Worldview=>Vision=>Frames=>Assumptions=>worldview

  • jordan retro

    I really don't want to be treated like the teenager I was 30 years ago just because of some box someone has placed me in!

  • lpederson

    I would say that in the past week I've done a “frame re-set”. I went from “people don't care about all of the goofy little things I know about” to “the people that are directly surrounding me might not care about it but there's a whole other world of people out there that might”. It feels great!

    BTW…the only change I made in the past week was reading your stuff! Good stuff man!!!

  • http://www.twitter.com/joshchandler Josh Chandler

    That is what makes the internet such a connecting and diverse platform to express our thoughts and opinions on. Like you said, a direct proportion of people may not care about your interests but when you get online, it makes a whole world of difference.

  • http://www.twitter.com/joshchandler Josh Chandler

    That puts things into a much richer perspective for me, thank you Siddhartha.

  • http://www.twitter.com/joshchandler Josh Chandler

    Pam, just think also how the digital networks we are building now are also creating a permanent archive for people to perceive us by.

  • Peg Mulligan

    I'm currently reading David Weinberger's “In Defense of Optimism” update to the 10th Anniversary Edition of the ClueTrain Manifesto. I agree with the guidance there, that when deciding amongst the three attitudes (dystopian, utopian, or realistic) toward the Net (and by implication, life) that we choose the one with the best possible outcome.

    This post also resonates for me with the section in Trust Agents, on How Frames and Perspective Matter. There, you refer to the “abundance mentality,” described in Dr. Stephen R. Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. I'm stumbling across the term “abundance” in The Clutrain Manifesto as well, and how the Net encourages that kind of thinking…

    And the old English major in me recalls the line from Hamlet, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

  • http://www.looble.com/ deceth

    You should really frame your artwork. Unless your artwork is a moose statue rather than a painting. Then I see your point.

    Although you really shouldn't have a moose statue.

    • http://www.superdumbsupervillain.com/ superdumb

      Did you mean larger than life-sized anthropomorphic sculptures of panda bears in lingerie, squatting to pee?

      http://bobburdetteart.com/artwork/496241_Crouching_Panda.html

      Yes, this is in my living room.

      • http://www.looble.com/ deceth

        I take back my previous statement. In retrospect, you really should have a moose statue.

  • http://www.looble.com/ deceth

    A box has 1 exit, a frame has 2. I realize escaping a box can prove difficult if scaling walls is not your thing, but a frame, well after 30 years, you should be able to fall right out.

  • http://www.looble.com/ deceth

    Remember that movie, “Dude Where's My Car'? He couldn't find the car. The problem was assumptions.

    Okay, admittedly there were some other problems with the movie too…

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  • http://blog.ipa-media.com/ Dan Wedin

    I agree with re-setting your frames from time to time but could impatience or lack of persistence or confidence cause one to re-set too often? meaning you're on the right path but, it's longer than you planned.

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    The frame is the context within which you will create your story. Of course, your story has certain limits because of the frame and assumptions, so it is vital, just as you say, to be willing to reframe (“Reset your frames”) when you run into the border of your current frame as you tell your story.

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