Today, we're talking about the power of reframing.
This is a powerful personal tool but it's also a very powerful leadership tool.
Reframing is like giving your brain a different way of thinking about something.
You're literally interrupting an old way of thinking and introducing something new and
something fresh.
You're causing a pattern interrupt in your brain.
The reason you need to do this is because your brain develops patterns based on previous
ways of thinking and doing things.
We now, through reframing, can interrupt that old way and introduce something new.
Even in an MRI machine, reframing can be seen as different areas of the brain light up after
somebody has reframed.
Think of it like flipping a coin.
You're literally flipping your point of view.
You're looking at it from a different perspective.
This creates new patterns in your mind.
Now it's the one skill that if you develop this skill and make it part of your lifestyle
can really change the way you work, the way you innovate and definitely the way you lead.
You know, the more you do this, the easier it becomes.
Your brain gets used to this exercise.
It's like exercising a muscle in gym.
Here's the bottom line.
Did you know that you can flip any problem into a new possibility by disrupting the old
ways of thinking?
Well, to do this, I want to give three categories of examples.
The first one is we're going to look at emotional reframing and then we're going to look at
some problem reframing and then we're going to talk a little bit about relational reframing.
I want to make this session really practical and to the point.
I want to do this by just giving lots of examples.
Starting with emotional reframing.
Think for a minute that you are about to give a presentation.
There's the podium.
It's on a stage.
There's 500 people in the room.
You're about to walk onto the stage.
You're in there behind the curtain and you feel your palms are sweaty, butterflies in
your stomach.
What is that?
You could tell your brain, I am anxious.
I am nervous, even a bit fearful.
But you can also reframe that and tell your brain, I am excited.
Your brain will literally believe you and therefore translate that the sweatiness in
your hands, the butterflies in your stomach is you being excited about making your presentation.
It's an incredibly powerful technique.
Perhaps you're about to do something you just don't like doing.
You could think in your brain, I'm dreading doing this.
This comes from an old pattern because every time you've tackled this type of task, you've
thought I don't like doing this.
But you can reframe that and say, what if this can be an adventure?
I am excited about doing this because I love adventure.
Perhaps you get into the habit that every now and again your brain comes up with, this
is so hard.
Again, a pattern developed because every time you've tried this particular task, it has
been difficult for you.
But you can disrupt that pattern by asking, what if it's not?
What if it's not hard?
What if I can become good at this if I keep at it?
Or maybe you have the thought of, I'm never going to get this.
I've done this again and again and again, I just don't get it.
Perhaps you're studying for something.
Perhaps you're learning a new technique or a new process.
What if you reframed that old pattern interrupt and got your brain thinking about, I can learn
anything if I'm patient with myself.
Literally, I can learn anything if I'm patient with myself.
Now it's an issue of time, not an issue of intelligence.
You've reframed it from an intelligence problem to a time problem.
Perhaps you're thinking, I failed at that task.
Maybe you did something and you just failed.
You cannot fail.
You could reframe this and say, I fail and when I fail, what happens is now we're taking
an identity statement that I'm a failure or I'm a failure in that category.
What if we reframed that as, I'm always learning so I can never fail.
I can do better next time because I'm always learning.
I'm always learning so I can never fail.
You cannot fail if you're always learning.
Which reminds me of a story of a young man that cost a company $10 million dollars in
a mistake that he made.
I mean, he failed spectacularly.
It's a big company, tens of thousands of employees.
He gets called to the CEO's office.
While on the way to the CEO's office, you can
Imagine the thoughts going through his mind.
I am so fired.
In fact, it's so bad, the HR is not firing me.
The CEO himself is gonna fire me.
So he walks into the meeting and says to the CEO,
before you say anything, I just want you to know
I understand, you know, you gotta let me go.
This was a catastrophic failure on my part.
Cost the company $10 million.
And the CEO looks at him and says,
what do you mean let you go?
We just invested $10 million in your learning.
You aren't going anywhere.
You see, that CEO reframed and didn't look at it
as a failure, but as learning,
as an investment in his learning.
All right, so that was all under the subject.
Quick example of emotional reframing.
Let's go to the second category.
Problem reframing.
This could be like in product development
and trying to solve, you know, come up with new solutions
and solve problems in your business.
One reframing is what if we reframe an engineering problem
into a marketing problem?
You know, I love the story of a train,
the Euro, you know, the Euro that connects the,
it connects England to France.
And, you know, the big question there was,
can we make the train faster?
It takes too long for the trip.
Well, that as an engineering problem
would be incredibly complex and expensive
and cost maybe $10 billion.
A very, very expensive problem and challenge indeed.
But what if we reframe it as a people problem?
What if we make the trip more fun,
like adding Wi-Fi or giving, serving free wine
and making the entire experience much more fun?
Suddenly it doesn't feel so long.
You know, one of the great examples of this
is if you think about, you know, the anxiety
or the stress of when you order a taxi.
And you order the taxi and you wait for it to come.
You know, are they gonna come?
Did they go to the right place?
Did they get the right time?
Do I need to go out there and stand out in the rain
because, you know, maybe they missed us?
Maybe they parked around the corner.
There's a lot of anxiety about this.
And so the engineering problem might be,
or solution might be, well, let's get the taxi there
a little bit faster.
And that could involve a lot of software and upgrades
and be a pretty expensive thing to scale.
But if we flip the problem to,
oh, it's an emotional or people problem,
then you come up with a genius idea like the Uber map,
where you can literally see on your app,
you can see exactly where your ride is
and how long it'll be till you get there.
This removes the anxiety out of the problem
and certainly a lot cheaper to implement.
You know, there's a famous example of,
there was this group of elevators
in a big, very tall business block.
And in this, you know, business office block,
you know, 25 floors,
there just didn't seem to be enough elevators.
And everybody in the building complained
that the elevators took too long.
Then they consulted a psychologist who said,
well, why don't you just put a full length mirror
on each side of the door and see what that does.
And the complaints dropped to almost zero.
You know why?
Because now people could use the mirror,
do a little bit of grooming,
check how they did, is my hair okay?
And we changed an engineer,
we literally reframed an engineering problem
into a people problem or a marketing problem.
And so this leads us in an engineering
and in a problem solving world,
especially when we're dealing with products and services,
it's very easy to create an assumption
when you first create the product
and then forget to challenge that assumption.
Does this still need to be there?
So the question is, can we reframe the assumption?
You know, my wife tells a great story about a young lady
who's learning to do the turkey at Thanksgiving.
And she's watching her mother
and the mother takes a piece of the turkey
and just cuts it off.
I mean, just a whole section of the turkey
just gets literally cut off.
And she puts it in the pan and she says to her mom,
mom, why are you cutting a piece of the turkey?
She said, well, that's the way my mother taught me.
And so she said, well, go and ask grandma why she does this.
She says, grandma, why do you cut off a piece of the turkey?
Mom says, that's the way you taught her.
She said, yeah, well, I cut a piece of the turkey
because I had a small pan.
So, you know, it's good for us to reframe the assumption.
What assumption about this problem are we making
and assuming that because it held previously,
now it still holds now?
You see, here is a powerful way to do a pattern interrupt.
Assumptions create a set of patterns and and from those assumptions we build
solutions. Okay let's go to relational reframing. Maybe you work with someone or
in a relationship with someone and you say that person really annoys me
as opposed to reframing it to that person makes me grow. I have to practice
patience, I have to be calm, you know so I have to exercise more self-control. Well
what are those things doing for you? They're making you grow as a person. So
in a way they're kind of a gift. They you know they are really patience growers
or my boss really doesn't like me. It's always on my case. You could flip that
and say my boss helps me grow faster. I have to be on my game. You know another
way you might think of it as you know that team member is always negative. When
we come up with some new thing they always the first ones to say what can go
wrong. Why not reframe that to that team member stops us from doing dumb things
and making mistakes. You know I was thinking about this and I want to make
this super practical. So I want to end with a story that comes from my
business partner Graham and and I want to talk about the concept of reframe
stacking. Not only can we reframe a thing personally but as a leader we can
reframe something for someone else and help them move to an entirely different
identity even. So I want to tell you a story about Graham talking to a woman at
a dinner party and she just got a new job. In fact her dream job and here's how
the conversation went. So Graham says so you must be delighted right? Woman
actually I'm extremely fearful. I mean I feel anxious and I feel sick in my
stomach. I'm really worried. What if I'm not good enough? Graham what if you're
not? What if you're not extremely fearful but just apprehensive? I mean that's
normal right? New job, new people, new environment. She says yeah no I can I can
see that. Thank you. Yeah that's helpful. I I can see it would be normal to be
apprehensive. I'm glad I talked to you about it. Thank you.
Graham so you're apprehensive then? What if you're not? What if you're a little
apprehensive but you're also intrigued? What do you mean? She says you know you
said it's a great company right and they're good at finding great people so
they must have seen something in you and been excited about you joining their
team. So what if you're only a little apprehensive but you're really quite
intrigued about your new job? She says they are a great company. They're number
one in their field and they wouldn't hire an idiot so you know yeah I'm a
little apprehensive but I can see that a little apprehension is okay but I am
really intrigued now. Graham so you're a little apprehensive but mostly intrigued?
Yeah I think so. She says. What if you're not? What if you are mildly nervous but
really excited? I mean it is your dream job. Your entire career has led to this
job so you know you could give yourself permission to be excited about it. Yeah
this is amazing. I never think like this. I'm I'm so glad I talked to you. I see it.
I get it. I get it. I'm mildly nervous but really excited. I
cannot wait to start. Graham so you're mildly nervous but really excited?
Mm-hmm. What if you're not? What if you're quietly confident and really joyful? She
thought about it for quite a bit and then said yeah I like that. This is the
new me. Quietly confident and joyful. Here's the bottom line. In 17 minutes
Graham reframed her by changing her identity. She went from extremely
fearful and being very anxious to someone who's quietly confident and
joyful. Literally reframed her through a series of reframing. Therefore we call it
reframe stacking to give her an incredible gift. An upgrade in how she
thinks about herself. This is such a great gift that leaders can give. I
mean give people a better identity so they can become an extraordinary person.
Look reframe stacking doesn't all have to happen in one sitting like it did at
the dinner party for Graham. It can be done over a year. Imagine how your team
will love being around you. You know you can be the best leader in the world by
being the person who's always upgrading people. Here's the secret.
Become powerful when you make others powerful.
Reframing is a powerful tool to do just that,
and it's a great way to live.
Hope you enjoyed this training.