Reframing: learning to think differently
Why do we do the things that we do? And: how could we do things differently? All of our thinking and actions are based on assumptions, most of which remain unexamined. We analyse our assumptions in order to reframe our approach and experiment with new actions. We do this with personal, team and organisational projects.
Key takeaways
Reframing limiting beliefs. Recognising and challenging outdated assumptions is crucial for adapting to new realities and driving innovation. Questioning our fundamental assumptions and creating radical alternatives takes us out of our limiting framework.
Developing a wide variety of perspectives. We tend to have a preference in our approach, a default position from which we work. This session encourages participants to develop a wide variety of perspectives, so that we have the flexibility to treat each situation in the way it requires.
Taking the initiative. We only change our behaviour when we decide to do things differently. When we do things differently, the system around us will have to adapt. This is an empowering shift: from a reactive sense of having no agency to the desire to experiment with new approaches.
Interaction
This is an interactive session in which Karim puts several questions to the audience. Every participant has the chance to reflect on their own assumptions, to question them, to change them, and to design a way to experiment with them. Q&A at the end.
Session overview
Much of the way we see the world is simply incorrect. Dinosaurs did not look the way we think they did. The lion is not the king of the jungle. The world map we use every day is dramatically distorted and gives us a completely wrong idea of the world. Karim opens the session with these wrong pictures and shows why they survive: we keep repeating old views instead of updating them to what we now know.
The same is true of many assumptions in our professional lives, about clients, about communication, about pricing, about the way we run meetings and answer email. In our first interaction, participants examine their own way of working. What assumptions underlie their current approach, and are they still correct? Our assumptions work like a set of glasses: they determine what we see and what we miss. Most of us have a favourite pair. The aim of the session is flexibility, a whole collection of glasses, so that we can choose the perspective that fits the situation instead of the one we have always worn. This is our personal challenge and growth opportunity.
We examine examples of radically different approaches that led to dramatic breakthroughs in science, sports, and business, and analyse how to shift our thinking in a similar way. Participants come up with radically new assumptions, and with a different perspective in hand, they design a small experiment. We use A/B testing as a method: A is what we normally do, B is the new approach. It takes courage to try something new, so we try the smallest possible experiment, and the experiment is successful whatever happens, because it gives us data about whether this is a better approach.
While these are serious issues, it is an engaging and fun session. When we realise how much of our view of the world rests on wrong assumptions, we understand how much there is to gain from looking at things in a new way: opportunities to improve our impact, our effectiveness, and our work. It feels like a liberation from the limiting beliefs we started off with, and we leave with a commitment to try something new.