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Week 2: Identify Frames and Metaphors; Groups

Week 2: Identify Frames and Metaphors; Groups

“Topic 3: Identify Frames & Metaphors. Frames defined: Characteristics of frames … Frames grab you … Breaking frames … Discussion of stop & thinks __ Topic 4: Groups. Why join a group?: Getting the most out of a group
Group operations & culture … Special characteristics of innovative groups … Discussion of stop & thinks … Week 2 Wrap-Up”
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Summaries

  • Week 2 - Identify Frames and Metaphors; Groups > Topic 3: Identify Frames & Metaphors. Frames defined > Frames Defined
  • Week 2 - Identify Frames and Metaphors; Groups > Characteristics of frames > Characteristics of Frames
  • Week 2 - Identify Frames and Metaphors; Groups > Frames grab you > Frames Grab You
  • Week 2 - Identify Frames and Metaphors; Groups > Breaking frames > Breaking Frames
  • Week 2 - Identify Frames and Metaphors; Groups > Discussion of stop & thinks > Discussion of Stop & Thinks
  • Week 2 - Identify Frames and Metaphors; Groups > Topic 4: Groups. Why join a group? > Why join a group?
  • Week 2 - Identify Frames and Metaphors; Groups > Getting the most out of a group > Getting the most out of a group
  • Week 2 - Identify Frames and Metaphors; Groups > Group operations & culture > Group Operations & Culture
  • Week 2 - Identify Frames and Metaphors; Groups > Special characteristics of innovative groups > Special characteristics of innovative groups
  • Week 2 - Identify Frames and Metaphors; Groups > Discussion of stop & thinks > Discussion of stop & thinks
  • Week 2 - Identify Frames and Metaphors; Groups > Week 2 Wrap-Up > Concept Review

Week 2 – Identify Frames and Metaphors; Groups > Topic 3: Identify Frames & Metaphors. Frames defined > Frames Defined

  • Our questions were bold and unframed, yet plausible, actionable, and useful.
  • This week, Egbert will lead us to the “I” in PIG In MuD, Identify frames and find alternatives.
  • Most modern progress is slow and stepwise, occurring by way of “evolutionary innovation,” useful elaborations on existing ideas.
  • Evolutionary innovation produces products and processes that are better, faster, or cheaper than what came before.
  • How does anyone come up with a transformational idea? The answer lies in our habitual ways of approaching problems, what linguists call “frames.
  • ” Frames are the expectations and assumptions we bring to interpreting new information.
  • They allow us to think and speak in a common and highly efficient shorthand.
  • A classic experiment that helps explain the impact of frames asked subjects to devise solutions to rising crime in a community.
  • When the narrative characterized crime as a “contagion,” respondents proposed compassionate solutions, such as reducing poverty and increasing education.
  • One frame presented criminals as victims, while another presented a frame of criminals as menaces.
  • We have frames, assumptions, and expectations that we call “stereotypes” when we encounter other genders, races, and ethnic groups.
  • Subjects paired “gentle Jane” and “strong John” faster than they did “gentle John” and “strong Jane.” Frames are typically unconscious, more so than you might imagine.
  • Because frames are beneath our level of awareness, they are hard to identify and even harder to change.
  • Stop and think, McDonald’s is likely the most successful restaurant of all time, with 68 million daily customers and outlets in 119 countries.

Week 2 – Identify Frames and Metaphors; Groups > Characteristics of frames > Characteristics of Frames

  • In an experiment conducted by a famed to Yale psychologist, students standing on buses asked seated strangers to give them their seat.
  • When the student politely offered a good reason, such as feeling faint, the seated person often did switch places.
  • The stranger less often rose, when the student asked for the seat wondering out loud to an accomplice, whether it would be all right to ask someone for a seat.
  • In one context, a good reason, the stranger’s assumption was that the student needed help.
  • In another context, an unsupported request, the assumption might have been that the student was maddeningly entitled.
  • A devastating wasting disease called Kuru plagued the tribe.
  • Carlton Gajdusek, who made his life’s work uncovering the mystery of Kuru’s cause, noticed that women were most commonly affected by Kuru and ask whether the Fore burial ritual might be linked to the disease.
  • Kuru, he learned, could be transmitted by some new and mysterious infectious agent, a finding that won him the Nobel Prize.
  • Back in New Guinea, Gajdusek spent decades battling against the culturally acceptable custom of cannibalism.
  • Attitudes did finally change, the ritual faded out, and women stopped dying from Kuru’s horrible touch.
  • How have place, time, and culture affected the company’s business model? Go back to start of transcript.

Week 2 – Identify Frames and Metaphors; Groups > Frames grab you > Frames Grab You

  • They’re emotional, and that makes them particularly deep and hard to change.
  • When frames are broken- We’re dreaming? NARRATOR: We experience a visceral negative reaction.
  • Metaphors are a language device we use to convey frames, and they turn up the emotional heat.
  • Here too, the unemotional becomes emotional, since money evokes feelings.
  • Both have been used to characterize non-nationals moving to our country.
  • Illegal aliens suggests repulsive creatures unlike us.
  • Both terms produce a stronger emotional kick than, say non-nationals moving to our country.
  • Thus, metaphors, like frames, grab at our heartstrings and leave a lasting impression.
  • What frames does McDonald’s draw on in its marketing to attract and maintain customers? For each strategy and frame, write down your own emotional reaction.

Week 2 – Identify Frames and Metaphors; Groups > Breaking frames > Breaking Frames

  • FEMALE SPEAKER:Without frames, it’s unclear how complex societies could evolve.
  • Ernest Rutherford, father of the atom, was a genius frame breaker who exemplifies how shattering frames can transform science.
  • He chemically extracted a gas from the radioactive element thorium, calling it thorium-x, that contained thorium’s radiation.
  • The gas turned out to be helium, meaning that thorium could break down into another element.
  • Of course degradation of radioactive elements is far from alchemy, but the discovery that elements can convert paved the way for all future understanding of electrical power, electronics, and the nuclear era.
  • Since frames are subconscious and embedded, we’re often unaware of what they are, let alone how to break them.
  • Finding alternative frames can be helped using an easy four step approach.
  • Identify the current frame using metaphors, consider the consequences- good and bad- of the existing frame, devise an alternative frame, consider the consequences of the new frame.
  • Put frames and frame breaking all together now for McDonald’s.
  • Go through the steps of considering existing frames that pre-existed McDonald’s, their consequences, alternative frames that McDonald’s devised, and their consequences.
  • How can it examine its own frames to remain profitable? “.

Week 2 – Identify Frames and Metaphors; Groups > Discussion of stop & thinks > Discussion of Stop & Thinks

  • McDonald’s introduced the radical concept of fast food in which food is not served, but ordered and payment is made before the product is received.
  • Some of the other realms in which McDonald’s disrupted existing practices were in introducing assembly line technology into the food industry, and in exercising control over their restaurants’ supply chains.
  • Burgers in China, for example, taste quite different from the ones in the US. Meanwhile, McDonald’s recognized the need to make their new frames emotionally pleasant.
  • Associating happy childhood experiences with McDonald’s burgers created lifelong customers.
  • Metaphors such as Happy Meals heightened the positive emotional content of McDonald’s marketing.
  • These are only a few examples of the many alternatives McDonald’s brought to conventional restaurant frames.
  • Detriments might be eroding the social cohesion in an extended family meal, and fast food as a modality for transmitting obesity around the world.

Week 2 – Identify Frames and Metaphors; Groups > Topic 4: Groups. Why join a group? > Why join a group?

  • DR. ROBERTA NESS: Today we’ll move from tools to people, because today’s discussion is about the creativity benefits of working in groups.
  • Modern groups are unlike hierarchical, insular organizational teams of the past.
  • Crowdsourcing is the new term for self-organizing, volunteer, democratic groups that form over the web.
  • Crowdsourcing has created the world’s largest encyclopedia, Wikipedia, funded crazy startups through Kickstarter, and been eerily accurate in predicting future outcomes through Intrade.
  • One reason why croudsourcing works so well is because of Joy’s Law, “No matter who you are-” Bill Joy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems said, “-most of the smartest people work for someone else.
  • Many people, each contributing local knowledge, can be very smart.
  • It’s not the people who are best trained in that field.
  • Just the opposite, a physics problem gets solved by a basic biologist or an amateur chemist working out of her garage.
  • Smarts and creativity within a team often arises from synergies amongst people with diverse frames and with diverse personalities.
  • The book Making Ideas Happen describes people as dreamers, doers, and incrementalists.
  • The best-performing groups are ones that permit varied members to contribute their full wealth of perspectives and intelligence.
  • Experiments over the past 20 years have shown that heterogeneous teams are more productive and more creative than homogeneous ones.
  • In one study, two virtual groups were asked to solve a difficult problem.
  • Another experiment of groups set to intelligence tests demonstrated that the interaction that best characterized well-performing groups was, again, not smarts, but inclusiveness.
  • The software industry utilizes many kinds of groups.
  • Google extends its products through crowdsourcing, such as OpenStreet, wherein volunteers armed with GPS devices add to Google Maps the location of bike racks and running paths.
  • Write down as many reasons as you can for working within each type of group.

Week 2 – Identify Frames and Metaphors; Groups > Getting the most out of a group > Getting the most out of a group

  • ROBERTA NESS: Attention to both task and interpersonal relationships is critical to group development.
  • They avoid conflict, but also don’t delve deeply into complexities and the needed group processes and task approach.
  • Mission-oriented logistics take up most of the groups time while members begin to figure out what the work entails, but also how they’ll fit in.
  • Storming begins once some trust has been developed and the members feel freer to challenge each other’s opinions.
  • If this grows to consume meeting time or is taken too personally, storming can undermine individual motivation and group success.
  • Only then will the group gain autonomy and all of its members feel free to contribute.
  • Norming describes the successful maturation of groups that emerge stronger after the storming phase.
  • Trust is established, and the team has gained alignment on aims and plans.
  • Performing teams are autonomous, harmonized, and effective.
  • When members or internal leadership changes, the team can easily go back to storming and the maturational process begins anew.
  • Forming, storming, norming, and performing stages are not of equal duration.
  • What do you want to know about their existing group makeup and culture? What advice do you give them for creating more successful teams? “.

Week 2 – Identify Frames and Metaphors; Groups > Group operations & culture > Group Operations & Culture

  • Groups larger than seven have been shown to be unwieldy and less productive.
  • Finally, high performing teams never lose sight of the goal that the group’s reason for being is to get a job done.
  • The most talkative group members naturally dominate discussions.
  • Finally, leadership of well performing groups is facilitative rather than directive.
  • Facilitation gives space to everyone to voice crazy ideas, separates fact from opinion and limits judgment, reinforces synergies while acknowledging differences, helps shape procedures to fit group needs and keeps the group on task and at high energy.
  • The story of postmenopausal hormone therapy is a cautionary tale of what can happen when a group- in this case, US physicians, particularly gynecologists- does not function along these lines.
  • At the height of its popularity, hormone therapy was the number one selling drug in America.
  • Over the years, risks of blood clots, uterine cancer and breast cancer emerged.
  • Physicians took no notice, rationalizing away findings that detracted from hormone therapy’s appeal.
  • Leaders in the field labeled anyone who doubted hormone therapy’s benefits as reactionaries.
  • In 2002, after randomizing 16,000 post menopausal women to hormone therapy or placebo, the hormone group proved to have an excess of breast cancers, heart attacks and strokes.
  • Add to your advice to IBM about how to shape their group culture based on the pitfalls demonstrated by physician groups around hormone therapy.

Week 2 – Identify Frames and Metaphors; Groups > Special characteristics of innovative groups > Special characteristics of innovative groups

  • Bell Laboratories, a division of the telecommunications giant AT&T in its heyday, may have been the most productive research and development group ever assembled.
  • This is how my voice would sound over a 75 mile telephone line that has no amplifying device.
  • The solid state group, inventors of the transistor, hired super bright physicists, chemists, engineers and metallurgists.
  • A young, ambitious risk taker, William Shockley, was laboratory leader.
  • He promoted group interactions through egalitarian, democratic consensus.
  • Group members regularly challenged existing knowledge and disputed each other’s findings.
  • The charge given to the solid state group was nothing less than to unify the theoretical and practical in a search for knowledge so fundamental it would have the power to transform.

Week 2 – Identify Frames and Metaphors; Groups > Discussion of stop & thinks > Discussion of stop & thinks

  • Groups inspire individuals to do their best and meet deadlines.
  • Among the things you want to know about IBM’s existing group makeup and culture are how do leaders interact with the group? How empowered do members feel? Do participants believe their team is maximizing their own and the group’s innovative potential? Why or why not? Does everyone on the team feel respect for everyone else? Who not- no names- and why? Advice you give them for creating more successful teams would include all of the ground rules we saw in the lecture.
  • You might encourage them to diversify group membership and to balance colleagues’ interpersonal strengths.
  • Training both for leaders and for group members in ground rules, frame shifting, communication skills and signs and prevention of disrespect would be useful.
  • Physician groups were led by powerful thought leaders who had a stake in the existing frame.
  • Finally, groups were convinced they knew best, so they refused to question assumptions and beliefs.
  • Still today, a subset of gynecologists refuses to accept the clinical trial data and pushes universal use of hormone therapy amongst postmenopausal women.
  • Groups can thus be smart and creative, benefiting from intellectual and emotional synergies.
  • Groups mature- through stages of forming, storming, norming, and performing.
  • Understanding these natural states helps us to ensure group success.
  • Finally, groups tasked to be particularly innovative need special handling.

Week 2 – Identify Frames and Metaphors; Groups > Week 2 Wrap-Up > Concept Review

  • They constrain innovation by setting powerful norms that are hard to identify, let alone break.
  • DR. ROBERTA NESS: Groups can thus be smart and creative, benefiting from intellectual and emotional synergies.
  • Groups mature through stages of forming, storming, norming, and performing.
  • Understanding these natural states helps us to ensure group success.
  • Setting reasonable ground rules for interaction is equally important.
  • Finally, groups tasked to be particularly innovative need special handling.

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