The Framing Trap is when we are influenced by how information is given to us, or "framed," such as emphasizing the risk, but downplaying the reward of a decision.
Here are some framing examples you might find at work with ideas for addressing them:
Asking more questions to uncover additional context can be particularly useful when helping someone avoid the Framing Trap.
• When have you fallen into (or almost fallen into) the framing trap? What helped you to see or avoid it?
• What’s a recommendation or proposal your team is working on? Seek challenge to make sure the opportunity or decision is framed correctly.
Resources
Decision Traps
Overview: Decision Traps
Decision traps, also known as cognitive biases, are common errors in thinking that can lead to poor decisions and recommendations.
As with all pitfalls, the first step in avoiding them is awareness. We can also help one another by asking good questions and speaking up when we observe that others might be falling into these traps.
Examples and Tips
Below are scenarios to illustrate how good questions or comments can help improve thinking and decision making.
Example 1
Example of Flawed Thinking
Kylie provides a list of possible new suppliers that only includes large, national companies.
Helpful Questions/Comments
I noticed all recommended vendors are large, national companies. Is this intentional?
What disadvantages of smaller vendors are you trying to avoid?
Maybe we should reach out to others in organization to see their experience with smaller suppliers for these materials.
Example 2
Example of Flawed Thinking
To improve sales effectiveness, Dimetry suggests sending a survey to customers who recently renewed contracts.
Helpful Questions/Comments
I’m concerned we won’t learn how to improve if we only talk to customers who are already happy with our products and services.
What might we learn if you talked to customers who didn’t renew with us?
Example 3
Example of Flawed Thinking
Natalie says, “That alternative would be expensive because it requires hiring contractors. Let’s just use in-house people.”
Helpful Questions/Comments
Do we have the capability to do this well?
What would the opportunity cost of using employees’ time on this?
The financial costs seem higher for this alternative, but we haven’t yet considered its benefits or opportunity cost.
Maybe we should brainstorm other alternatives.
Example 4
Example of Flawed Thinking
While discussing project timelines, Hans says, “We did something like this in 2015 and it only took about two months.” The entire team starts acting like “two months” is settled.
Helpful Questions/Comments
What has changed since 2015 that could affect the two-month estimate?
Are we sure that’s reasonable for the current situation and team?
If I recall, we did it in two months, but we didn’t have the project load we have now.
Example 5
Example of Flawed Thinking
While deciding who to hire for an open position, someone says “Bari is a great candidate, she’ll fit right in on this team.”
Helpful Questions/Comments
I think we should be careful to avoid hiring someone simply because they’re like us.
Instead of talking about “fit,” let’s talk about how each candidate might be additive to the team.
What’s the downside of hiring someone who is so similar to others on the team?
What Can You Do?
It’s human nature to fall into decision traps – they happen simply because of how our brains work. Good economic thinking, critical thinking and challenge can help us identify and avoid flawed thinking. Going forward, focus on asking good questions and seeking people who can ask you good questions to improve your thinking. Here are some general questions that can apply to many situations:
What are we missing?
Are we getting too attached to an idea too soon or to what we’ve done in the past?
What are some other alternatives?
What would someone who disagrees with this approach say?
What assumptions are we making?
Below is a list of common decision traps. It’s not important that you memorize or know the names of each decision trap. Instead, it’s important to help one another recognize and avoid flawed thinking.
Common Decision Traps and Cognitive Biases
The following are some well-known cognitive traps. They are not specific to organization or Principle Based Management, instead they are handful of many well-researched human tendencies. If you want to know more, you can find additional information about these and other decision traps online.
The Sunk Cost Trap is so easy to fall into because sunk costs are real. We vividly remember the time, money, and other resources spent, so it is hard to ignore them. But good economic thinking involves ignoring what you can’t change and focusing on what you can do now to affect the future.
Focusing too much on the past is a big clue that the sunk cost trap might be happening. Here are some examples of what that might sound like:
Things you might say to help people break out of this trap:
Strive to avoid sunk cost thinking—and help others do the same!
• Think about times you regretted staying too long (perhaps at a bad movie) or sticking with something too long. Why did you do that?
• When have you avoided the sunk cost trap, such as focusing on the current value of something rather than what you paid for it?
Everyone has biases – the tendencies and assumptions we start with when assessing a situation. There’s no master list of biases and these tendencies aren’t necessarily good or bad, but they do influence our perceptions, behaviors and decisions.
Being open to providing and receiving challenge, coaching and feedback helps us understand and account for our biases. Here are some examples:
Our principles of humility and openness are key to identifying and overcoming biases that keep us from being effective.
Humility
Our Value: Humility
Be humble, intellectually honest and deal with reality constructively. Develop an accurate sense of self-worth based on your strengths, limitations and contributions. Hold yourself and others accountable to these standards.
What is Humility?
Humility is the absence of arrogance, not the denial of strength or intelligence. To be humble is to understand and accept yourself as you really are and accept others as they really are. Having an accurate sense of self-worth begins by believing you have inherent value as a person – which has nothing to do with title, status or money.
Why is This Important?
Arrogance has led to the downfall of many once-successful societies, organizations and individuals. This is why we all need to exemplify humility and intellectual honesty as vital attributes of our culture. To create value for others and achieve personal improvement, each of us must constantly seek to understand and constructively deal with reality. Admitting when you need help, can’t do something well, or need to improve is liberating. It frees you to focus on how you can best contribute and allows others to do the same.
Principle in Brief
Arrogance – an exaggerated sense of your own importance or belief you are better than others – is the enemy of humility. It is a highly destructive trait for individuals and organizations. It blinds people to their limitations and biases them against the contributions of others. Lack of humility is so destructive that Pope Gregory listed pride as one of the Seven Deadly Sins more than 1400 years ago. Arrogance has led to the downfall of many once-successful societies, organizations and individuals.
Humility is the absence of arrogance, not the denial of strength or intelligence. To be humble is to understand and accept yourself as you really are and accept others as they really are. Having an accurate sense of self-worth begins by believing you have inherent value as a person – which has nothing to do with title, status or money – and then discovering your talents and developing them into valued skills. Admitting when you need help, can’t do something well or need to improve is liberating. It frees you to focus on how you can best contribute and allows others to do the same.
Intellectual honesty is closely related to humility. It is dedication to truth and constructively dealing with reality, even when it is painful. Instead of only looking for evidence to support our ideas and views, it is to sincerely seek constructive feedback and strive to see things as they really are, rather than how we wish them to be. This is difficult because even when we ask for criticism, we often want praise. We constructively deal with reality by stopping unprofitable endeavors, being realistic about threats that could harm our business and experimenting to create better results. People who are intellectually honest change their paradigms when those paradigms are holding them back.
Maintaining humility when you’ve been successful is especially challenging. The minute we believe our success is inevitable or feel we are entitled to our success, we’re in serious trouble. True humility is reflected in our willingness to hold ourselves and others accountable for results and behavior consistent with Our Values. We should have high expectations of ourselves and others, willingly admit our mistakes, make corrections when we fall short of these standards and give credit where credit is due.
Examples
Consistently practicing humility is important but also challenging since we all have egos. The following examples illustrate what demonstrating humility and lacking humility can look like.
Receiving Constructive Feedback
Demonstrating Humility
Gia was given feedback that she doesn’t seem to be trying to understand customer expectations and the department’s processes. Instead, she is recreating processes from her previous company. Gia was stunned by the feedback, but after thinking about it, she schedules time with her supervisor and says, “I want to understand more about your feedback. I was simply trying to get off to a good start in this new job, but it’s clear I need to do something differently.”
Lacking Humility (Defensiveness)
Gia was given feedback that she doesn’t seem to be trying to understand customer expectations and the department’s processes. Instead, she is recreating processes from her previous company. Gia was stunned by the feedback and immediately responds by saying, “I guess you don’t understand that in my previous company we had worldclass processes and that’s what this team needs! I’m sure that’s why I was hired.”
Receiving Positive Feedback
Demonstrating Humility
Eric’s supervisor invites him to join the safety committee because he provides valuable comments during shift meetings. Eric responds, “Can you help me understand which of my comments were most helpful and why? That way I can be as helpful as possible to the safety committee.”
Lacking Humility (False Modesty)
Eric’s supervisor invites him to join the safety committee because he provides valuable comments during shift meetings. Eric responds, “Thanks, but I don’t have anything better to offer than anyone else on the team.”
Struggling to Get Work Done
Demonstrating Humility
Claire just became responsible for coordinating a big recruiting event. There are many different tasks to be done, some of which she is good at doing and some she is not. Attention to detail is not a strength of Claire’s, so she talks to her supervisor about delegating registration tracking to Ryka.
Lacking Humility (Foolish Pride)
Claire just became responsible for coordinating a big recruiting event. There are many different tasks to be done, some of which she is good at doing and some she is not. She doesn’t want to admit that she is in over her head, so she works late every night this month to get everything done herself.
Openness
Openness is a simple concept reliant on a system of equal rights that respects the dignity of each person and their right to live as they choose – as long as they do not violate the rights of others. When people are respected, free to choose their own path, and rewarded for the value of their work, they can improve their own circumstances as they contribute to the well-being of others. An open society encourages honest exchanges of knowledge, opinions and ideas while protecting individuals from the threats or force of those who disagree.
Unfortunately, today’s trend is against openness. Differences have become dividing lines, with those who disagree demonized or canceled. More broadly, nationalism and tribalism pit one group against another. Closed-minded people retreat into insular and protectionist groups, reinforcing their own biases and preventing the exploration of different perspectives through civil discourse.
The ancient philosopher Confucius taught that it is “a pleasure to learn,” and that even in a group as small as three, there will always be one from whom we can learn. By embracing openness, we accelerate our rate of learning and improve relationships. Differences become opportunities for productive discussions even in the face of passionate disagreement.
Openness should extend to all interactions with others, including trade. Voluntary exchange – based on mutual benefit – fosters division of labor by comparative advantage and entrepreneurship that lead to a greater diversity of art, music, food and other goods and services that enrich people’s lives. Protectionist barriers to exchange, whether within or among nations, create closed systems that stifle innovation and value creation. As Frederic Bastiat observed: “When goods don’t cross borders, soldiers will.”
At organization, we recognize the vital role of openness in bringing about progress. Innovation flourishes when we encourage the free flow of ideas, well-designed experiments, challenge and building knowledge networks. Employees learn more and make better decisions when they seek out diverse points of view and are open to feedback about how they can improve. They help others do the same when they share their ideas and suggest different approaches. If we are open, we recognize that no matter how well we have been doing, we can always do better. Openness helps us overcome entropy in society, our organizations and our lives.
• Share with your team what you think your natural tendencies are and see if they agree. Ask them how your tendencies have helped or hindered your effectiveness.
• Using the links above, study the principles of humility and openness. Identify situations where you are likely to be set in your ways or see what you want to see. Tell someone who can help you overcome this tendency.