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.
No comments:
Post a Comment