You've Been Framed

A right how do you do

I’ve had a number of instances in this past week where I’m particularly reminded of what it is I do, or what it is I endeavour to do, or what I say it is in terms of answering the question, “So what do you do?”

Needless to say, it’s this: “I coach processes; I mentor people; I change perceptions”

Now, the ‘What do you do’ question is fairly standard, especially in meet-up contexts – from business networking, right down to filling in your registration form for e-Harmony!
However, regarding the matter of questions about ourselves, I’d like to shift the frame we generally put around the commonest meet-type question of all, “How do you do?”

These days, where parlance is much looser than in the past, HDYD (to give it a con-textual acronym) is more likely to be “How Are You?” or, more expansively, “How are you being?” or, textually, RUOK?

Framing

When I refer to framing it is about the meaning and focus put upon any course of thought or action.
So, in practical terms with (say) the Greeting Frame, when it comes down to it, “Are you OK?” is much more the question we get asked when someone sees us slip and fall. So in framing terms such a question would, very loosely, have just a few toes of one foot in the Greeting Frame.
Now, in case you’re beginning to feel I’m in a Waffle Frame here, just imagine the idea of going up to someone who has just slipped and fallen and asking them, “How do you do?”
Totally out of context, isn’t it?

Incidentally, if a player I’m coaching makes a repetitive error in practice, I’ll probably ask – with tongue in cheek, “How do you do THAT?” 
There’s an implication, a pre-supposition, that goes with such a question that repetition shows a degree of acquired competence. So the funny side of dropping the ball a few times is:- can they please show ME how to do it so I can get as good as they are. The desired effect usually happens, particularly for these reasons:

• ·         The inner search for ‘how’ they are doing it, in order to tell me, gives them insights as to how to change their actions for better outcomes
• ·         Realising that the Competence Frame includes errors as well as successes
• ·         The ability to laugh at what we do disengages the behaviour from our identity

This is one of many examples where for me - as a coach, mentor or perception changer - the Frames I work in, the Frames I am DOING what I do in, are hugely important for the people I am working with.

Rocket Science

Now, when we meet a rocket scientist, we might ask “How do you do?” in the Greeting Frame, and “What do You do?” in the Getting-to-know-you Frame – but I doubt very much if we’ll ask “And How do you do YOUR rocket science?”

Rocket Science is a highly specialised field and, since most of us operate outside of it, we’ll assume all rocket scientists do Rocket Science the same way. We’ll have no idea of how many ways there are of doing it, and what makes one rocket scientist better than another – except perhaps if we know the successes and failures of their particular rockets. Then we might apply the Judgement Frame to the rocket scientist we’ve just met!

The “I Know Something” Frame

So here, now, is the point of my going off at a tangent into rocket science. Most adults know things, through accumulated knowledge and personal experience. And the trouble with most frames is that most adults will arrive at “Coaching” or “Learning” and put a big frame around it called the I-Know-Something Frame.

“Mum, Dad, can you help me with this bit of homework?” will be one of the regular instances where adults attempt to bring this Frame into use. The trouble is there have been some frame changes in this subject since they were at school, and they’ll look at the homework and be bewildered, or various other shades of grey matter.

Now there’s another thing about adults and this particular frame:
They run what the coach, teacher, educator, says past their own knowledge and experience and then apply Judgement. And Judgement Frame outcomes in this context can range from “I’m stupid”, “It’s changed a lot since I did it”, “What a daft way to teach. Why have they changed it” right up to “This is ridiculous. I’m right and they’re wrong. I’m going to speak to the school.”

Now I’m very comfortable with the philosophy and rationale behind the way I coach performance, sport, and junior sport in particular. I’ve crossed many a bridge with certain parental behaviour and attitudes when it comes to the HOW of some of my methodology – particularly on the technical side. I’ve written elsewhere mentioning instances of where a child has said, “My Dad says do it this way ...” whilst I’m showing how they might do it better by “Doing it ANOTHER way ...”

I was talking to someone who runs a junior sports club where he struggled to equate the “I-Know-Something” Framed parents with the money they are paying to the club he runs. He feels they have a RIGHT to expect “a coaching experience” for their child in exchange for that money – which is perfectly right and fair of course. However, they don’t have a right to demand the coach does it the way that they say it should be done.

The Learning Frame

For me, the Learning Frame looms large over everything I do with and for clients. And I also put myself in there as well, for I have learned much from my clients over the years which has been really useful for me.

Now within the context of Learning, there are many different types of Frame. Some work better, some are less effective; some are particularly good for certain individuals, whilst for others a different one would be the ideal mode of application.

One of the dilemmas with any education system is where a wide range of unique individuals are taken through a limited number of Learning Frames. If I say “I liked science but was no good at languages” it is the kind of comment that says as much about my Learning Frames for each subject and the enthusiasm and communication skills of the teacher, as it does about my innate competence and level of acquired knowledge and expertise.

Built in to that scenario is our childhood and schooldays gravitation towards “liking” what we are “good at” and “disliking” what we are “not good at”.
Yet – how different would things have been if other Learning Frames had been applied to some of our subjects. Would our likes, dislikes, and competences have turned out in other ways?

We are never taught HOW to learn – or how many DIFFERENT ways there are to learning.
  
One of the dilemmas with any adult learning is that we often consider it from the perspective of our knowledge and experience of Learning Frames in our childhood.
 

I was talking with a client once about how some of their business plans would involve working abroad in a non-English speaking country. “I’m going to struggle because I was no good at French at school,” she said. After a little bit of discussion about certain aspects of her school experience of learning French, she gained a realisation that a number of factors contributed to her “no good at French-ness”, that had no relevance to her ability to speak foreign languages per se. This changed her whole perception about her ability to be effective in business in a non-English speaking country, and enabled her to move forward with a surety and a confidence she hitherto did not have.

Blowing a Gale

In terms of my sports coaching, some of the Learning Frames I apply are driven by experience and generative self-teaching using feedback loops. Now that might seem quite a linguistic mouthful – which was not wholly unintentional!

In practice we’ll do a drill, an exercise, some activity where the invitation to players is always to notice what is going on, and notice how you are reacting to what is going on. These are all processes, and we can experiment with processes in order to make them better. Unless we experiment with processes, how will we ever know if they can work better or not?

One of our recent rugby matches was played in gale force winds – probably in excess of 50mph. The physical logic is that, with passes and kicks, the ball will be blown off course – so a number of physical adjustments have to be made.
It is rather the same for any kind of adjustments to be made by any athlete in any sport in terms of adverse conditions.
 

So the preparatory warm-up for the players needs to incorporate a level of experimentation. They need to experiment with applying their skill-sets in the adverse environmental conditions – there needs to be an Experimental Frame to the warm-up. And one of the primary criteria of an Experimental Frame is that ALL outcomes are good ones, for they provide useful and relevant data to the experiment. So, for my rugby players, dropping the ball in practice is useful – and provided they all buy into that Frame, which means no cursing or shouting or making judgements about mistakes is necessary, then they’d get the maximum usefulness AND learning through feedback.
 

And thus it was in the match – where the players displayed a level of competence in handling the ball far in excess of what they might have done on a calm day. We still expected – and permitted – errors, for it was a very fierce wind. However, the experience of the well-framed warm-up released them from whatever limitations they may have applied to their expectations of both themselves and team mates.

Getting to know Your Genius

How we frame up what we do can either throw open doors or have those same doors slammed in our faces. Being flexible with our framing can lead to some amazing discoveries and outcomes as well.

One of my first school cricket coaching visits was to an urban primary school where most of the pupils came from a number of tough council housing estates. It was a year 5 class, so the children were aged 9-10. We assembled on the playground and I was introduced to the class. Then, as thirty pairs of eyes gazed at me, I greeted them with,
“I want you all to know I think you are all geniuses – but here’s the thing.”
As I paused I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, a look of curiosity and slight shock from the teachers. It was a look that said, “These kids – geniuses? You MUST be joking!”
“The thing is you don’t yet know what you are geniuses at – and part of what we’re going to discover this term is how much of a genius each of you can be at cricket.” 

Then I carried on with outlining – nay, Framing - the rest of the lesson, in terms of the activities. However, the scene had been set, the Frame established.

This was going to be fun to do, a voyage of self-discovery, and all from the pre-supposition of an unknown level of genius. 

You could say it is a pretty good Frame for Life as well.