1.5 - About University

H OW TO USE THIS LEADERSHIP TOOL“People tend to see what they want to see. Out of the mass of detailed information, they tend to pick out andfocus on those facts that confirm their prior perceptions and to disregard or misinterpret those that call their perceptionsinto question.”—Roger Fisher and William Ury, GETTING TO YESProblem reframing is a powerful tool. The earlier a problem is reframed, the better. The longera given problem definition is accepted, and the more people invest in a given way of understandinga problem, the harder it becomes to change perceptions and to challenge vested interestsat a later date. Our message is clear: Challenge how problems are defined, and do this earlyin the problem-solving process. Here is an example of actual use of this reframing tool–—thepresentation, and the leader’s questions to guide the reframing.1. The problem is defined too narrowly or presented as a solution.Employee: “I need a spreadsheet program installed on my computer.”Leader: “Just to be sure I understand, what uses did you have in mind for the spreadsheetprogram?”2. The problem is defined too broadly or too ambiguously.Employee: “We have a companywide communication problem.”Leader: “Can you give me a few concrete examples of this problem?”3. The problem statement leads to an inferior set of solutions or it fails to consider thefull range of critical concerns.Employee: “We need to cut costs.”Leader: “While costs need to be contained, can we also look at other possibilities thatwill increase revenue?”Focus on one problem that has recently been presented to you or that you have presentedto others. Rather than taking the problem definition for granted, a trap we all fall into everynow and then, use the workspace here to establish a more powerful frame for this problem.Referring to the previous example may help you formulate effective reframing questions.Any framewill provideonly a partialview of theproblem.Once a problemframe isaccepted, it isvery difficult tochange.The framechosendetermineswhere you lookfor solutions.202 SECTION 7 TOOLS FOR PROBLEM SOLVING, DECISION MAKING, AND QUALITY