1. Reframing Organizations, 5th ed.

2. Introduction The Power of Reframing
Virtues and Drawbacks of Organized Activity
The Curse of Cluelessness
Strategies for Improving Organizations: The Track Record
Framing
Multiframe Thinking

3. Steve Jobs: Learning from Failure
Jobs and ‘Woz’ founded Apple in 1977
Jobs fired in 1985: great product visionary but practiced ‘management by character assassination’
Learned to reframe during 11 years in the wilderness
Returned to save Apple in 1997

4. Are top managers clueless?
Rajat Gupta became the managing partner at the elite consulting firm, McKinsey & Company
Brilliant, highly respected, and a member of elite boards such as Goldman Sachs
Convicted of conspiracy and securities fraud for leaking confidential information in 2012

5. Are top manager clueless?
As New Orleans recovered from Hurricane Katrina, the Secretary of Homeland Security told reporters he had no reports of things that viewers had already seen on television news.

6. Virtues and drawbacks of organization
Prevalence of large, complex organizations is historically recent
Much of society’s important work is done in or by organizations, but…
They often produce poor service, defective or dangerous products and…
Too often they exploit people and communities, and damage the environment

7. Signs of Cluelessness
Management error produces bankruptcies of public companies every year
Most mergers fail, but companies keep on merging
One study estimates 50 to 75% of American managers are incompetent
Most change initiatives produce little change; some makes things worse

8. Strategies to improve organizations
Better management
Consultants
Government policy and regulation

9. What is a frame? Mental map to read and negotiate a “territory”
The better the map, the easier it is to know where you are and how to get around (a map of New York won’t help in San Francisco)
Frame as window: enables you to see some things, but not others
Frame as tool: effectiveness depends on choosing the right tool and knowing how to use it

10. Framing and “Blink” process
Well-learned and practiced frames facilitate “rapid cognition” – the capacity to quickly and accurately size up situations
Qualities of rapid cognition:
Nonconscious (you can do it without thinking about it)
Fast
Holistic
Results in “affective judgments”

11. Structural Frame Roots: sociology, management science
Key concepts: goals, roles (division of labor), formal relationships
Central focus: alignment of structure with goals and environment

12. Human Resource Frame Roots: personality and social psychology
Key concepts: needs (motives), capacities (skills), feelings
Central focus: fit between individual and organization

13. Political Frame Roots: political science
Key concepts: interests, conflict, power, scarce resources
Central focus: getting and using power, managing conflict to get things done

14. Symbolic Frame Roots: social and cultural anthropology
Key concepts: culture, myth, ritual, story,
Central focus: building culture, staging organizational drama

15. Structural and Human Resource Frames

16. Political and Symbolic Frames

17. Expanding managerial thinking
Traditional management thinking
Artistic thinking
See only one or two frames
Holistic, multi-frame perspective
Try to solve all problems with logic, structure
Rich palette of options
Seek certainty, control, avoid ambiguity, paradox
Develop creativity, playfulness
One right answer, one best way
Principled flexibility

18. Mini-case: Disney and the Pink Slips (I)
High-tech businesses lobby strongly in favor of the H-1B visa program, intended to expedite immigration for individuals who brings skills that are scarce among American workers
In October, 2014, 250 employees of Walt Disney in Orlando, Florida were told they would be laid off. Some were assigned to train their replacements.
The replacements were brought in under the H-1B program by an outplacement firm in India.
Reference: “Pink Slips at Disney. But First, Training Foreign Replacements.” New York Times, June 4, 2015, p. A1.

19. Mini-case: Disney and the Pink Slips (II)
Questions:
1. If you look at this case through each of the four frames, what structural, human resource, political and symbolic issues do you see?
2. If Disney reduced costs by bringing in the new workers, did they do the right thing?

20. Conclusion Narrow thinking  clueless managers
Multiple frames improve understanding, promote versatility
Multiple frames enable reframing: viewing the same thing from multiple perspectives