Decision Making: The Framing Trap

Before making an important decision, prudent managers evaluate the situations confronting them — and often fall into one of the eight traps of faulty thinking.  The Framing Trap

While we cannot entirely rid ourselves of them, we can learn to understand the traps and compensate for them.

The first step in making a decision is to frame the question. It’s also one of the most dangerous; how you frame a problem can profoundly influence your choices.

The Antidote

Limit adverse effects by employing the following:

• Don’t automatically accept the initial frame, whether it was formulated by you or someone else.  Always try to reframe the problem in various ways.
• Try posing problems in neutral ways that combine gains and losses or embrace different reference points.
• When others recommend decisions, examine the way they framed the problem. Challenge them with different frames.