Reframing Organizations, 4th ed.
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
Are top managers clueless?
 Home Depot CEO Bob
Nardelli somehow didn’t
anticipate that a rushed
shareholders’ meeting
where no one but him got
to say anything would
produce bad press and a
major rebellion by
shareholders and analysts.
Are top managers clueless?
 CEO Jeff Skilling
thought Enron
was “in excellent
shape” when he
quit a few months
before it
collapsed
Are top managers clueless?
 Joseph Berardino, CEO
of Enron’s auditor,
Andersen Worldwide,
said no one told him
some of his partners
thought the firm was at
risk in approving
Enron’s aggressive
accounting practices.
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.
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
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
Strategies to improve organizations
 Better management
 Consultants
 Government policy and regulation
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 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
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”
Structural Frame
 Roots: sociology, management science
 Key concepts: goals, roles (division of labor),
formal relationships
 Central focus: alignment of structure with
goals and environment
Human Resource Frame
 Roots: personality and social psychology
 Key concepts: needs (motives), capacities
(skills), feelings
 Central focus: fit between individual and
organization
Political Frame
 Roots: political science
 Key concepts: interests, conflict, power,
scarce resources
 Central focus: getting and using power,
managing conflict to get things done
Symbolic Frame
 Roots: social and cultural anthropology
 Key concepts: culture, myth, ritual, story,
 Central focus: building culture, staging
organizational drama
Structural and Human Resource
Frames
Frame
Structural
Human Resource
Metaphor for
organization
Factory or Machine
Family
Central concepts Rules, roles, goals,
policies, technology,
environment
Needs, skills,
relationships
Image of
Leadership
Empowerment
Social architecture
Basic leadership Align structure to task,
Align organization and
challenge:
technology, environment human needs
Political and Symbolic Frames
Frame
Political
Symbolic
Metaphor for
organization
Jungle
Carnival, temple, theater
Central
concepts
Power, conflict,
Culture, meaning,
competition,
metaphor, ritual,
organizational politics ceremony, stories,
heroes
Image of
Leadership
Advocacy
Basic leadership Develop agenda and
challenge:
power base
Inspiration
Create faith, beauty,
meaning
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 Principled flexibility
way
Conclusion
 Narrow thinking  clueless managers
 Multiple frames improve understanding,
promote versatility
 Multiple frames enable reframing: viewing the
same thing from multiple perspectives