My friend and mentor Bernie Roth teaches a classic tool called “Reframing” in our Transformative Design class at Stanford. It goes something like this:

1) what’s something you’re stuck on? (could be a challenge, an objective, a question, a goal, an unknown, etc) 2) what would it do for you if you were no longer stuck? (what would the impact be?) 3) that is your new objective, for which your original challenge/objective is only one of many solutions.

For example, a student once said, “I need to find a man to marry — it’s consuming so much of my attention and spare time, just thinking about how I’m not getting any younger...” When Bernie asked, “What would it do for you if you found a husband?” she replied, “Well, then I’d have companionship!” Bernie: “So that’s your goal: ‘I need companionship in my life.’ Do you see that ‘a husband’ is only one of many ways to achieve that goal? And a husband might not even be the best way to achieve it — you might have a lousy husband, who wouldn’t even give you companionship! It seems you need to solve the companionship problem…”

This “reframe” was the start of a revelatory chain of events in this young woman’s life.

I mention this tool because it came up in my monthly Junto meeting this morning. One of the topics that came up was “coming back to the office,” and how various organizations were crafting policies and communications.

Everyone’s organizations varied wildly in their perspective of return to work, let alone their approach to it. Coming back seems like a reasonable goal. I, for one, have been outspoken about the importance of in-person interactions in cultivating serendipity, and have wondered about the impact of COVID on mid- to long-term innovation prospects.

Yet something that struck me in the conversation was that the reason most leaders want folks to come back to the office is, they want increased engagement! And instantly, that reframe unlocked a realization: is “coming back to the office” — especially when the office is a dreadful cube farm — really the best way to “increase engagement”?

We had a fantastic discussion about ways to enhance engagement that far surpass mere face time.

But the point is, as long as the challenge set before us is “What’s the best way to get folks back to the office?” a certain consideration set emerges; but if we ask a different question, like, “What’s the best way to enhance our teams’ engagement in the work we’re doing?” an entirely different set of options emerge.

Often, we are solving the wrong problem, and a simple reframe — what would it do for us if we got this? — opens up a whole new world of possibilities.

As an aside, if you’re curious about that word “Junto,” it’s a tactic employed by Benjamin Franklin to amplify the diversity of inputs he considered throughout his life. For more on that topic:

Convene A Junto Like Ben Franklin

Why A Junto Works

Rules for Juntos

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