On fishes, frames, and messes

Knowing what they like

I am very fond of strawberries and cream, but I have found that for some strange reason, fish prefer worms. So when I went fishing, I didn’t think about what I wanted. I thought about what they wanted.

—Dale Carnegie

All too often, we are so gung-ho on our own point of view, we forget what the other person really wants. This applies to both first dates and executive pitches. Are you speaking your language or your stakeholders’ language?

How to balance advocacy with inquiry

Filters in play when we communicate

Pay attention to your frame

While on a family vacation in Santa Fe, New Mexico, a father and his three‐year‐old daughter were out for a stroll. While stopping to admire a particularly beautiful landscape, the father took a picture of his little girl against this lovely backdrop. This was long before the days of the smartphone camera. The girl had been told by her father many times that film had to be taken to a special store to be developed and that it would be several days before they could see their photographs. Although she knew this information, she asked the question anyway, as three‐year‐olds are so prone to do, “Why can't we see the picture right now?” Her father patiently offered the explanation yet again, but this time her question settled into his mind in a way it hadn't before… Why can't we see the picture right now?

Later, Edwin Land, founder of Polaroid, would recall that day in 1943 and he would add that “within an hour, the camera, the film, and the physical chemistry became clear.” As an armchair physicist, he worked out in his head a new kind of photography system that would include all of the components of a conventional darkroom in a single handheld device – even before they returned from their walk. He called his patent attorney that same day. There was a certain power in the way in which his daughter asked her question. It caused Land to ask the question of himself, a question he had never really considered before. Questions can be powerful.

— From Strategic Doing

The way we frame our question (and answer) goes a long way in how others respond to it. How much time have you spent designing the frame you'll use?

Related pieces:

Power of framing in creating Psychological Safety

Messes vs problems

Managers are not confronted with problems that are independent of each other, but with dynamic situations that consist of complex systems of changing problems that interact with each other. I call such situations messes.

Problems are abstractions extracted from messes by analysis; they are to messes as atoms are to tables and charts . . . Managers do not solve problems: they manage messes.

— Russ Ackoff quoted in The Reflective Practitioner

You get paid a lot more if you can solve undefined “messes” instead of well-defined “problems.” Conflating the two is a persistent source of frustration and also opportunity.