The Power of Reframing Issues
Turning Obstacles into Opportunities with a Change of Lens
Last fall, a friend who represents a men’s custom clothing line gave me a huge parcel of men’s shirt swatches. She knows I have a passion for crafting with upcycled materials, and these fabrics, made by some of the finest textile mills in Italy, were no longer relevant for her business. It felt like my lucky day. The problem was that I couldn’t peel the samples off their backing cards (the glue seemed to be permanent), and the swatches were smaller than what I normally quilt with. I considered my options: throw all the samples away (abhorrent to me as terribly wasteful), soak 3,000 small cards in water for days and then try to peel them off their cards, dry and iron them (too much work for too little payoff), or find some other way to use them.
My breakthrough happened when I used a classic reframing technique (one of three I will discuss further below), “Scarcity to Opportunity.” Instead of thinking about each swatch as a piece of fabric to be quilted, I reimagined each card as a mosaic tile, which led me to abandon the idea of a quilted piece altogether and imagine something much different. The photo at the top of this post, entitled “Resolved/Unresolved”, is the result of that reframing. In the end, I glued 1,728 individual 2” by 2” squares edge-to-edge to form a pixelated image that is 6 feet by 8 feet in size. It’s more of a fabric mosaic than a quilt. What started out as a disappointing technical dead-end became an opportunity to invent a new method of expressing myself and using donated materials. The piece is a metaphor for how we can be too close to situations to be able to see them clearly; sometimes distance allows us to see the whole more holistically.
I use this small example of reframing to raise a topic that is present in so many coaching sessions. Clients bring up topics where they have hit a wall or encountered an unanticipated obstacle or fork in the road. Usually, they have been struggling with the topic solo for a bit and often have tried to resolve the issue by digging in; or, they label the problem as impossible to solve and they stop trying altogether. Rather than trying to counsel them to refine their problem-solving efforts, my approach is to shift to understanding how they are seeing the problem.
That is where the notion of reframing comes in. Reframing is the ability to look at an issue through a different lens. Instead of treating the first interpretation as a hard truth, you can challenge it, flip it, twist it into some new or different form and ask: “What else could this mean? What else could I try?”
This form of reframing does not erase obstacles or difficulties, but it gives you back options. It can take you from being stuck to being resourceful and creative. And in the working world, that skill is often the difference between someone who stays stuck and someone who grows into greater leadership.
Why Reframing Works
Psychologists refer to reframing as cognitive reappraisal. Research shows that people who are skilled at reframing don’t just solve problems better – they also experience less stress, recover faster from setbacks, and communicate more effectively. If you see a critical email as a personal attack, you are likely to respond emotionally and defensively. If you reframe it as feedback, you might actually learn something, and strengthen a relationship with a colleague in the process. Reframing is the ability to take control of the stories your brain is creating based on its synthesis of information it receives.
Getting Trapped in Your First Frame
The way we process information, it’s easy for us to attach ourselves to the first way we frame a situation. “This project is doomed.” “My boss does not support me.” “I will never be good enough at the finance function.” Those beliefs are perspectives, not absolute facts. Taking the time to reframe gives you time to allow the inclusion of more information, slowing things down long enough for accuracy to catch up with the speed of your initial conclusion.
Three Types of Reframing
There are many different approaches to reframing, but here are three structural reframing archetypes that may jumpstart your thinking.
1. From Threat to Challenge
When faced with something challenging, ask, “What skills could I build here? What would I gain if I succeeded?” An example might be: “I’m terrible at making presentations,” transforming into “This is a great chance to improve how I communicate ideas.”
2. From Scarcity to Opportunity
When stuck thinking about a lacking resource (or one that doesn’t quite fit your needs, like my art example above), ask: “What resources do I already have, or how could I repurpose something to fit my needs? What doors might this situation open?” Here’s an example: “I don’t have enough staff to complete the work at hand” might be reframed as “This is a chance to change the way we approach this process or topic.”
3. From Problem to Data
When you hit a setback, ask, “What is this teaching me?” An example: “That strategy failed. Now I know what doesn’t work and I can refine the approach.” Thomas Edison famously tried over 3,000 theories and 6,000 different materials for use as an electric bulb filament.
Each of these reframes won’t magically solve an issue, but it changes your position relative to it and can often lead you to a deeper understanding of the objective reality of the situation. Instead of being at cause, you are now at effect (see my post on being at cause here).
Reframing in Leadership
Great leaders are constantly reframing. In the extreme, there are now-famous examples of Steve Jobs’ “reality distortion field”; I am not advocating for that. But when a team misses a target, a great leader won’t dwell on blame. They will ask, “What did we learn?” or “How do we effectively adjust?” That keeps morale high and the energy of the team looking forward. If employees are feeling boxed in, leadership helps them elevate from the individual data points (the “pixels” in my eye image above) to the bigger, synthesized picture, and ask, “What if we change our perspective and think about where we should pivot?” By reframing, leaders expand the mental state their teams operate in, making it safe to experiment, fail, and try again.
An Exercise
Here is a mental exercise you can try to see the value of structured reframing.
1. Write down a current issue at work that feels heavy or frustrating. Experience tells me you will not have a shortage of potential material.
2. Write down the first sentence that comes to mind about it. That is your default frame of reference.
3. Now, write three alternative frames:
a. One that sees it as a challenge;
b. One that sees it as an opportunity;
c. One that treats it as data.
4. Ask yourself: which of these frames creates the most energy for me? Which one is most likely to motivate me to act?
Final Thoughts
Reframing is not a Pollyanna exercise in pretending that everything is positive. It is a structured way to reclaim perspective. By shifting the frame, you are shifting possibilities that are available to you.
Musical accompaniment: