A32.5.5.RB_MilliganSteven

As discussed in my previous blog, my three protected values are as follows; caring for my family, protecting humanity and protecting the freedom of peaceful beliefs.  For myself these values are inherent in who I am. How far would I be willing to go in order to protect these values?  When do they conflict with one another and what happens when they do?  These are questions I have to ask myself in order to have a better understanding of how valuable they truly are to me.  Are my values worth my life? Are they worth the life of others? Are they worth the friendship of others?  These can be difficult questions to answer, however, doing so may help when the time comes to protect these values.  

One of these values is a physical entity.  My family, to me, is the most important thing in my world and I will do anything to protect them.  Where my struggle begins is when my family is willing to hurt others.  What if my child was going to hurt someone else? What if he, through his experiences, believes that hurting someone innocent is the right thing to do? How would I handle that situation?  

One experience I've had that is similar but not quite as extreme is with a cousin of mine.  Over the years I have watched him date, lie to and hurt many girls he's had relationships with.  It's been about 5 years since I last saw him.  I was recently attending a military course that happened to be located near where he is going to school.  I went up to visit him and met his girlfriend he is living with.  She is incredibly nice and funny and I really liked her.  I thought maybe at this point he'd grown up and stopped all the lying to women I'd watched him do growing up.  The next week he and his girlfriend flew to Utah for Thanksgiving.  One night I got a text from my brother who had caught my cousin out on a date with a different girl than his girlfriend.  As disappointed as I was, I wasn't surprised.  I ended up not seeing my cousin again because I couldn't look at him without wanting to punch him in the face.  I also couldn't look at his girlfriend knowing what I know.  In the past I have told girls he's been with about what he does and it never changes anything so I've opted to just stay out of it and generally I don't communicate with him all that much.  This is a struggle for me because while he is family and I care about him, I also care for the many girls he's hurt.  It's one thing when you are young and dumb, but as you grow up there are real consequences to the things you do to others.  It is a struggle to care for my family and care for others.  In more extreme circumstances I can see how much more difficult it would become to truly care for both.  As your kids grow up you have to hope that you have taught them to respect life and others beliefs and hope they go on to do the same. 

When looking back at the video by Dan Gilbert, he discusses Odds.  I have certain protected values based on my life and my experiences.  We often make decisions based on odds.  When he discusses the lottery and how we make decisions, we often make decisions based on our memory.  When we see lots of people win the lottery we think we are more likely to win.  We also recall answers to questions based on memory.  An example he gives is when we guess that we are more likely to see dogs on leashes than pigs on leashes because in our life we have seen more dogs on leashes.  I base my values on my previous experiences.  Had I grown up in an abusive home with hateful, racist parents I may not hold the same values.  I may not care for family or even want to have a family of my own.  I also may not agree to let others hold their own beliefs and may even think it poses a threat to me.  I also may not have any concept of humanity or what that means.  Had I grown up in an abusive household I may only understand survival rather than the concepts of caring for others.  

Our values are developed through our life experiences and may change depending on how our life changes and how our experiences change.  Dan Gilbert states that, "Comparison changes the value of things" (Gilbert, 2005).  My value of protecting beliefs in incredibly important to me.  If I move to a country where that same value is not held and people are killed every day for holding their own beliefs would this value change?  Would something else become more important?  If I live somewhere where the law states that I don't have these freedoms do my values change or do my decisions change?  In my own life my values have dictated quite a bit of my decision-making.  As I come in contact with others I interact with them in a way that respects their beliefs and values because that is part of my value.  When someone violates another's life or freedom or humanity my own value on humanity requires me to step in and do something about it.  However, would doing something about this take away from my ability to care about my family.  Although I am in the military I specifically stayed away from military professions that specifically put me in harm's way.  While I could be in danger as a Logistics Officer I am not as likely as someone in Special Operations or Para Rescue.  Those people specifically go in to harm's way in order to protect our world and others.  While I respect them greatly, doing something like this would have taken away from my ability to take care of my own family when they need me.  This is just not a choice I can personally make.  I applaud those who can. 

Having protected values is important to our lives.  By knowing what we value and how much we value it we can make decisions before ever being put in a situation.  There may, however, come a time when we have to choose between protected values or even not being able to protect them in a way we once had.  Understanding this may enable us to make the best decision possible when protecting these values may not be feasible.    

Bibliography

Gilbert, D. (2005, July). Why We make bad Decisions.

A632.5.4.RB_MilliganSteven

Throughout my life I've lived in many different places and have quite a variety of experiences.  While my own current set of morals are not necessarily something that is right for someone else they are shaped upon the world and experiences in which I live.  While I live my life in a certain way I can see how my life and values may be different if I were born in a different country in different circumstances.  For me however, there are three sets of protected values that I feel I could not ever deviate from no matter the situation.  The first of these is caring for my family.  I grew up in a household with loving parents that took care of us raised us to do the same.  My Dad was in the Army when I was younger and often sacrificed time with us in order to take care of others.  These experiences play a significant role in my first two protected values.  Protecting my family is inherent in the core of who I am.  Because of my family and my religious beliefs I take the idea of being a husband and father seriously.  I cannot think of anything in this world that I could be offered that would cause to give up taking care of them.  

The second protected value is protecting humanity.  Protecting humanity for me is not the same as protecting human lives.  There is a difference between the two in my mind.  This is defined on dictionary.com as, "the quality of being humane; kindness, benevolence."  This plays a part in how I've chosen to support my family.  When I was younger I worked in several different jobs.  I worked in construction, marketing and sales for Nabisco Foods and Kraft Foods.  While I didn't mind the jobs I had and even enjoyed a lot of what I did I knew I did not want to do that for the rest of my life.  I didn't care enough about cookies to try my hardest to sell them.  After a few years of college and not being able to decide on what I wanted to do with my life, I eventually decided to look into the Air Force ROTC program.  While I didn't necessarily have anything specific I wanted to do in the Air Force I knew I wanted to be a part of it.  Upon commissioning I was made a logistics officer.  At first I didn't see the real benefit of how this was working to help humanity.  As I learned more about my career and experienced more things I realized what we did.  We provide the necessities of life all around the globe.  When people are hurting and need equipment, food, tools and anything else, we are the people that get it to them.  Taking care of our own brothers and sisters in the armed forced is a large part of the reason I love what I do.  Taking care of people all over the world is the reason I love the Air Force.  For all the bureaucracy and frustration we experience, the reality is that we will do what we can to help people around the world. 

My last protected value is freedom of your own beliefs.  People have the right to believe what they want as long as it's not used as an excuse to take away someone else's right to believe what they want or cause harm to that person.  I strongly believe that we should have the right to freedom as long as it doesn't infringe on another person's freedom.  This idea is something that many of us believe, however, we often will ridicule and degrade another person's beliefs.  I have no right to degrade someone for being Muslim, Christian, Wiccan, Hindu or any other religion.  We all have belief systems that share many common ideas.  We tend to focus on the differences because it is easier than focusing on the similarities.  When I was in young I moved often.  I would often live in places that had very few members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.  I would find there were often misconceptions about our beliefs.  When people would ask me what I believed I would return with the same question.  When they would tell me what they believed I would respond with all the similarities.  We often had a great deal in common.  Because of these similarities and the following respectful discussions we would usually become great friends.  By allowing each other to enjoy our own beliefs while sharing in the similarities we could get along and avoid pointless contentions.

I have heard over and over that while many things in life are temporary your family is not.  That is the only thing that will be around at the end of your life.  While I mostly agree with this I also feel that there are occasions that I need to sacrifice time spent with my family in order to fulfill my other value of protecting humanity.  We had military leader speak with us recently.  He spoke extensively about pillars.  One pillar was family, while the other was the air force and the other was ourselves.  If we spend too much time on one without taking care of the other it may weaken and crumble.  We need to have balance in our lives.  There are times that I have to sacrifice my own selfish desire to be with my family in order to take care of other people.  I also have to sacrifice my desire to be with my family in order to take care of my own family.  I have spent almost eight months of the last twelve away from my family.  It has been long and painful but I did it for two reasons.  I knew what I was doing was good for others and the other being, I need to earn a living to take care of them.  In the end though, there may come a time that I realize that the Air Force will ask me to sacrifice too much and I will need to leave in order to continue caring for my family.  

I have deeply religious beliefs that I was brought up with.  It is a part of who I am.  One of my beliefs is that what we do here will carry with us after this life.  This helps me make decisions in a few different ways.  The first being to let the petty things go and take care of the big things.  By doing what we can to make someone's day better we are helping that person to possibly pass that on.  These simple acts of kindness can make an everlasting impression.  While I love having the ability to stay connected on Facebook to friends and family I feel that it can be a method of dividing us if we let it.  I have a cousin that is vegan.  She takes every chance she gets to inform everyone about her veganism and why everyone should stop eating meat.  She is often rebuked on Facebook by friends and family for consistently sharing her ideas.  When I see it getting heated I will sometimes call or text her and ask how she's doing.  I don't ever bring up the veganism or her beliefs on the subject.  I just call to find out how life is and check up on her.  She's about twelve years younger than me and didn't expect me to care.  After one session of talking back and forth about life she sent me a text thanking me for checking up on her and staying connected.  The last few years have been tough on her and she was grateful I had stayed in contact.  This contact played into two of my values.  Caring for family and the freedom of beliefs.  Her beliefs were not hurting anyone, although some may have found her vocal nature to be annoying.  Her beliefs are hers and she is family.  My difference in eating habits will never outweigh those two protected values. 

While a care a great deal for both my immediate and extended family, I can see how some people may struggle if caring for their family directly conflicts with protecting humanity.  As I watch the news lately I can't help but reflect on the Dylann Roof massacre.  I watch what he did and can't help but wonder what I would do if my child did something so terrible.  While I love my family and especially my children, how far would that love go in order to protect humanity.  If I knew they were going to do significant harm to someone else how far would I go to stop them.  Would I even recognize the warning signs.  Would my love for them cause me turn a blind eye to their desire to do harm.  My beliefs in freedom, religion and the afterlife dictate the majority of how I run my life and how I raise my family.  My protected values of caring for my family, protecting humanity and allowing others to peacefully practice their own beliefs stem from my own religion and beliefs.  When these begin to contradict each other is when tough decision may need to be made.  Could protecting my own family harm another family?  When do I stop sacrificing my time with my family to help and work to protect others?  When does another person's belief system endanger my own?  Do their beliefs, though nonviolent, entice bigotry and hatred? How far do we allow the darker side of humanity go before we have to step in and put a stop to it?  I believe these are questions that police officers, fire fighters and other community servants and military members ask themselves each day.

Before this assignment I honestly had not ever really thought about protected values.  While I feel these are still strong values to me I can see how there could be circumstances that may cause me to stray from my original ideas.  Though, those circumstances would have to be incredibly extreme, and I'm not sure exactly what I would do in those circumstances.  Hopefully I never have to experience it.

A632.4.4.RB_MilliganSteven

There are a number of way to detect deception during negotiations.  By learning how to evaluate information and detect these deceptions we are more likely to avoid being deceived and receive the correct information.  In the American culture we often don't like to haggle or negotiate.  We like to take what the seller is offering at face value and trust that they are being honest with us.  In my time in other countries and based on their cultures I have found that it is easier to negotiate because you can assume that the other person is not being completely honest with you.  They know you know this.  Through this understanding you can haggle back and forth and ask enough questions to make sure you are getting all the correct information.  This is something I have found very useful throughout my life. 

There are four ways in which we can evaluate information during a negotiation in order to make sure we aren't being deceived.  I'll go over how these all came to play in a purchase that my wife and I made last year.  The first of these is to ask direction questions.  Asking direct questions that often go two or three levels deep can bring to light any deceptions.  The text states this about a study that was done regarding direct questions.  "In the study, when sellers were asked direct questions, 61 percent revealed the problem, 39 percent lied by commission, and 75 percent lied by omission"(Hoch, Kunreuther, & Gunther, 2001).  There are times when you will be looking to purchase something expensive and need to get all the information you can regarding the item.  However, the seller will not want to tell you everything about it.  Asking direct questions and carefully listening to the answers will often bring to light information regarding that item.  The text describes listening carefully as "listening to both what is said and not said"(Hoch, Kunreuther, & Gunther, 2001).  

When my wife and I moved to Guam we needed to purchase a new car.  We were still trying to sell the car we had from Germany that we could not bring to Guam with us.  We needed to get a reliable car but did not want to spend a lot of money.  Everything on Guam tends to be more expensive because it's a small island in the middle of nowhere.  We began looking for cars that we could afford.  We found a Hyundai Tucson that was in our price range on a dealership website.  When we went to look at the car the dealer was hesitant to show us even though the picture looked pretty decent on the website.  We finally found out that the car had significant issues and was still being worked on.  We still wanted to look at it because it was one of the only cars in our price range.  We then asked to look at the carfax so we could see what kind of damage it had taken.  There was a massive dent in the front bumper that we weren't aware of because of the angle of the picture online.  At first the dealer couldn't get the carfax and then he had trouble printing it.  By watching him I could tell that he was trying to avoid giving us the carfax.  We finally pushed and were able to get it.  We started asking more questions and found out that the air conditioner and ignition were both broken.  It was only through multiple direct questions that we were able to get all the information we needed.  In the end we got them to shave off even more money from the price and fix everything while replacing the brakes and putting on completely new tires.  Now that we knew everything and understood that even if it did have some issues we could fix those and it would still cost us significantly less than buying any other car. 

By asking direct questions we were able to get more information regarding the vehicle.  We also had to listen carefully to his answers.  We could tell he was avoiding giving us certain pieces of information and the more we asked the more he tried to direct us to more expensive cars.  By watching him move away from the car we were interested in and direct us toward more expensive cars we were able to tell that he was trying to avoid giving us information.  He also had trouble getting us the carfax at the time.  I finally had to explain our situation to him and why we were interested in that specific car.  I had to tell him that I knew there may be some problems with it but if he didn't give us all the information on it I would just go elsewhere.  By focusing on his nonverbal cues and listening carefully to his answers when we asked questions we were able to get better insight into what he was doing and were able to redirect him to where we wanted him to be.  Had we not paid attention to those things we may have ended up being talked into a car we couldn't afford at the time.  Even though he told us he couldn't print the carfax I knew he really just didn't want to show it to us.

Another way to evaluate information is to get everything in writing.  During the purchasing process of the car we knew that if we didn't get everything in writing we may run into some problems later on down the road.  My wife is especially good at these details and made sure to look over everything carefully.  The text states, "During negotiation keep a record of claims others make.  If certain information is particularly important to the deal, put things in writing, inspect records and insist on guarantees"(Hoch, Kunreuther, & Gunther, 2001).  We knew they had worked on quite a few things in order to get this vehicle in good working order.  When we received the paperwork for the car we made to that everything they had fixed was included in the guarantee.  This assured us that we would not have to worry about these same things going wrong in the near future and have a broken down pile of metal and wasted a bunch of money.  This has served us well since then.  Although the car has been pretty reliable, a few small things have gone wrong and they have fixed them quickly and without questions because we made sure to get it in writing. 

There are very few occasions in which I am willing to deceive someone in order to get what I want.  When I am selling something I tend to be extremely honest because that it what I would want someone to do with me.  There have been occasions however, that I have not told the entire truth in order to get a job done.  I have not lied but I have also not given all the information needed.  Where I work at the moment my boss likes to micromanage as much as he can.  We will sometimes have problems in the workplace, however, I know that if I tell him about the problems that he will get involved and only make things worse.  In order to avoid this I don't give him information that I know he may want.  By doing this I am taking a risk but allowing my team to work out the problems rather than my boss getting involved and trying to make all the decisions himself.  By omitting this information I feel that I'm doing what is right for my team and keeping my boss focused where he needs to be.  If things get too out of hand however, I will pull him into the issues so that he can have situational awareness.  By doing this I am giving him information that I know he now needs and I'm inviting him to start making decisions that may be more detrimental to the situation.  While I like to avoid that I also need him to be involved at certain points so that he can send information up the chain as needed.  Negotiating is simply communicating with someone while having an end state you want to achieve.  Sometimes by omitting information you can avoid the negotiation all together.  You need to know when that is appropriate though and when to divulge that information in order to protect yourself, your leadership and those that work for you.   

Bibliography

Hoch, S. J., Kunreuther, H. C., & Gunther, R. E. (2001). Wharton on Making Decisions. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

A632.3.3.RB_MilliganSteven

Because of the fast paced, always changing world we live in it is important to understand how to make decisions for complex problems.  We live in a world economy where many of these decisions may affect multiple stakeholders.  We may also have a completely different set of needs then a company we are working with.  Sometimes changing our business models can help us make decisions. 

A flexible, two-stage process is one way in which we can make these decisions.  In the text it talks about this process, It states, “In the new approaches, decision making is viewed as a rolling two-stage process: The first stage focuses on enhancing knowledge of the environment, response flexibility, and the value of future options.  The second stage is concerned with cashing in on those options that are in the money” (Hoch, Kunreuther, & Gunther, 2001).  Basically this approach says that we need to combine methods of gathering data and make it available to us at any given moment.  Because we live in a world where decisions can have instant consequences we need to be able to have access to instant and live data.  Within my organization we handle minute to minute flight schedule and cargo changes.  Having live access to this data helps us to make correct and safe decisions regarding how the loading of the aircraft.  Because some items are hazardous and cannot be placed near other items we need to have access to up-to-date information that tells us what is going to be on an aircraft and when it will be landing.  Changes to the cargo size and weight can also have a significant impact to the flight capability.

Understanding trends in our businesses can helps us to be a better organization also.  One way in which we do this is through inspections.  We consistently have inspections on our processes that often affect the way in which we do business.  We have records of past inspections from the previous weeks, months and years.  This information enables us to identify commonalities in our shortfalls and weaknesses.  By understanding these we can hopefully find ways to fix these weaknesses.  The text states, “Any patterns in this data can be used to begin the process of focused detective work” (Hoch, Kunreuther, & Gunther, 2001).  We often use data gathered by our different sections to begin the process of finding out what is going wrong and what the possible solutions may be.  Over time these changes help us to avoid making the same mistakes over again.   

Another method the book discusses is Doing Something about the Weather.  The book gives a brief explanation of this.  It states, “By studying the demands of different customer segments on one or more of these “similar days” and adjusting for changing price effects, a very accurate picture emerges” (Hoch, Kunreuther, & Gunther, 2001).  The example in the book refers to using information from the past five years of weather to predict the future.  We can use similar methods in our organizations.  We look for similarities in the different behaviors of airmen in order to find out when mistakes will happen.  We even look at weather patterns in order to know when to secure equipment or prepare for flooding.  At the moment I’m stationed in Guam.  Every year we tend to get hit with a number of typhoons.  By using information from previous years we are able to mitigate any damage it might do.  We bring has many vehicles inside as we can and then strap down other items so that they won’t fly away and damage something or someone.  These past experiences help us to mitigate any problems that may happen in the future.  We are also using housing and manning information to help gain funding for new structures.  As the military is still looking to increase it’s presence in Guam we are in the process of using this information to request funding for new structures so we can handle more personnel.  Similarly, we use adjustment factors to help us decide what amount of funding we may need in case the number of personnel grows from the initial estimates. 

Because of the complex nature of the world we now live in we have to remember that there are a number of stakeholder involved in these decisions.  My organization is just one of many on a base.  Decisions we make can affect the entire base and even those in other locations.  In order to be able to serve everyone equally and fairly we have to do our best to set specific standards.  Although it can be difficult to make sure everyone adheres to these standards, we have to implement them in order to be as efficient as possible.  We have standards for building pallets of cargo, what cargo can go together, how the cargo must be tied down and even the height and width of the cargo depending on the size of the aircraft.  If anything changes, those changes need to be communicated to us.  When these changes are made it can affect the entire mission.  Aircraft are given a certain amount of fuel based on the amount of cargo they are planned to take on.  Changes in that cargo can have catastrophic effects on the plane and can even cause it to crash. 

The combining factor in all these comes down to communication.  Whether it’s data, schedules, objectives or changes, communication is a key factor in the success of a company.  Due to the complexity of the missions we deal with it is imperative that all stakeholders have good communication.  In Guam we deal with power issues.  In the last several years there have been several power plants that have exploded and are no longer useable.  In order to provide power for the entire island we have implemented energy conservation on the base.  Certain hours of the night we shut down operations in order to conserve this energy.  If anyone is not involved in this decision process it can cause issues with operations that may have second and third orders of effect.  Being present with the correct information and being able to share that information is the key to success.  Not sharing this information with others will cause serious mistakes to happen.

Whether leading your troops, employees or just communicating with other sections or stakeholders, being knowledgeable in your updated and accurate information can make or break a company.  Having the ability to gather the data needed to do the job is vital to be able to do this.  We need to understand how we can obtain data vital to our decision-making process and how to appropriately use it to forecast the needs of our organization or share it as applicable. 

Bibliography

Hoch, S. J., Kunreuther, H. C., & Gunther, R. E. (2001). Wharton on Making Decisions. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

A632.3.4.RB_MilliganSteven

When I was 19 years old I moved to the Philippines in order to do two years of missionary work.  I was given six weeks of language training and then sent off with a very basic knowledge of Tagalog (the native language) and a limited ability to teach and connect with those that live in the country.  Attempting to do this as a young naïve 19 year old is very difficult.  I fell into a number of framing traps while living over there and I had to learn a lot about stepping out of my comfort zone in order to teach and help others. 

There are many differences between the Filipino culture and the American culture.  When I first arrived I was completely blind to how these differences and my inability to adapt to them would affect my service.  I was learning that my mental model of the world was not accurate and that I was going to have to change it quickly.  I also realized that when I first arrived there I was blind to this.  As I made friends, increased in my knowledge of the language and culture I focused on understanding why things were the way they were in this country.  People would often do things that would be considered inappropriate by American standards.  I remember one occasion, I was at a church activity.  It was a talent show.  For part of the show a group of elementary age girls were going to do a dance to a popular song in the Philippines.  When they came out to do the dance they were pretty scantily dressed for little kids and the song was full of coarse language and had a pretty questionable theme.  Especially for a church activity.  This would be equivalent to kids dancing to pretty much any profanity laced Nicki Minaj song at church.  I was completely blown away by this and discussed with some of the other adults afterwards about not letting them do that again.  None of them could understand why I cared and what the issue was.  I then realized that the song they had been listening to was in English and most of them didn't understand the words which meant they didn't understand what the dance was referring to.  In their minds it was just cute kids dancing to a song with a good beat.  My mental model and limited understanding of the culture led me to misunderstand the purpose of the dance at the talent show.  In the text it states, "To understand other people's frames, you might ask yourself, "What matters most to them? What do they talk about most often" (Hoch, Kunreuther, & Gunther, 2001)?  It also states, Effective communication and dialog require a thorough understanding of other people's frames of mind" (Hoch, Kunreuther, & Gunther, 2001).  My frame needed to change.  I needed to understand the culture and the people around me.  What matters to them and why they may see things differently then I do.  As I changed my mental model and my understanding shifted I was able to connect more easily and was able to work with and teach much more confidently.  I made friends quicker that I still connect with twelve years later. 

Another experience I had came later in life as I was in charge of deployment planning in Spangdahlem Germany.  At the time we were setting up a base in Romania in order to conduct training missions in that area of the world.  We needed to plan the logistics to get a F-16 squadron out there and immediately following an A-10 squadron would fly in.  There were a number of problems and limitations we were dealing with that if not properly handled would cause mission failure and would have cost the government millions of dollars.  My planning experiences for this type of mission was very limited.  We set the dates for airlift based on flight schedules that were available. We then set truck dates for items that would go by ground.  Based on other missions that were taking place we were beginning to realize that moving all these parts were going to cause problems.  Another mission had been planned for the same F-16 squadron in Morocco without informing us.  Items that were supposed to be in Romania were now schedule to be on a boat to Morocco weeks before they would even return from Romania.  The complications of these missions were getting deeper and more complex and we were quickly becoming overwhelmed.  We quickly had to change our frames.  At the time we were significantly limited by aircraft in the region.  The Air Force only had a limited number of cargo planes we could use and they would often get tasked for higher priority missions.  It was during this time that we had met a Captain that was newly stationed in Belgium and was working for the Government to hire civilians aircraft from neighboring countries to fly people and cargo for certain missions.  We had never thought about using civilian aircraft because this was a military mission.  As we worked through these countries we were able to get the aircraft needed.  We were also able to use these aircraft to fly items from Romania to Morocco which negated the need for those items to ships out weeks in advance to go by the much slower boat method.  The text discusses this particular framing trap.  It states, "Frames create highlights and shadows, focusing our attention on certain aspects of a problem while leaving others in the shadows.  Frames also distort by imposing mental boundaries on options" (Hoch, Kunreuther, & Gunther, 2001).  At the time we were focused on the problem at hand and tried to figure out how to get the tools we knew about to work for us rather than using new tools.  Essentially we were building new frames for a new situation.  Here the book states regarding a company that needed to create a new frame, "To succeed long-term, the company had to switch it's entire strategy from a traditional advertising frame to an integrated marketing, and even consulting frame"(Hoch, Kunreuther, & Gunther, 2001).  While our change was not quite so drastic, we did have to change our frame and look outside our normal scope.  Eventually, through meeting and discussing options with a new individual we realized that our view of the world around us was incomplete and that all the tools were at our disposal.  By meeting certain people and opening our minds to other options we were able to accomplish the mission and even bring the overall cost of it down due to the cost of the civilian aircraft being cheaper than what we would normally pay. 

Sometimes we don't need to go this far though.  Sometimes we just need to stretch our frames a bit.  Years ago I worked for a chiropractor doing marketing.  I would go to businesses, grocery stores, gyms and a variety of other locations.  I would discuss the benefits of chiropractic's and try and get people to sign up for adjustments.  People would often tell me that their back doesn't hurt so they don't need a chiropractor.  I would respond by them what else hurt instead.  At a certain point in life we all have something that hurts.  When they told me I would inform them how a chiropractor could help them fix that particular issue.  At the time those people saw a chiropractor as only helping with back problems.  The books states, "It is often easier to get others to stretch their frame, rather than to totally change it" (Hoch, Kunreuther, & Gunther, 2001).  Everyone know that cracking their back feels great.  Having a medically trained professional do this throughout your whole body must be even better.  He could help with joints, pressure points and all kinds of aches and pains.  However, as time went on the chiropractor wanted me to start advertising how he could help with colds, viruses and other related sicknesses.  I felt like this was pretty sketchy but I decided to do research on it just to be more knowledgeable.  I couldn't find anything that showed any significant proof that what he was saying was possible.  At this point he was trying to stretch my frame.  I resisted and tried to challenge his points.  I told him there was no scientific basis for what he was telling me.  He continued to try to convince me that it was a valid treatment.  Eventually I decided to leave the job over these differences in opinion.  There are times where our frames will not allow us to continue on a certain path.  I could be completely wrong in my assessments, however, I couldn't bring myself to trust in what he was telling me and that caused me to leave the position and find a new job.  

The way we see the world will often dictate the decisions we make.  Learning to open our minds and see things from new points of view can help us to see new paths and hopefully make better decisions.  In the business world this can often lead us to better unforeseen ventures.  Android software was originally meant to go in cameras, however, because someone saw things from a new point of view the software has completely changed the way our world communicates.

Bibliography

Hoch, S. J., Kunreuther, H. C., & Gunther, R. E. (2001). Wharton on Making Decisions. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.