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Frame Shift and Outthink Your Competition

Guest post by: David Carter

Article Overview: According to Kaihan Krippendorff, author of Art of the Advantage, successful leaders can shift their perspectives more often and draw from a more diverse set of experiences, than the rest of us. They are able to handle more complexity and ambiguity because they recognize more patterns. More successful leaders are better able to change their perspectives than less successful leaders. Krippendorff calls this ability "frame shifting."

Frame Shift and Outthink Your Competition

Have you ever been running late and could not find your keys, or the invitation you needed for a special event? You look high and low but to no avail. Out of ideas as to where you might have put them forsafekeeping, you lean over the couch and look along the floor from an upside down vantage point. And there they were - right under the couch.

Sometimes just changing your perspective reveals the solution or the approach to your challenge.

According to Kaihan Krippendorff, author ofArt of the Advantage, successful leaders can shift their perspectives more often and draw from a more diverse set of experiences, than the rest of us. They are able to handle more complexity and ambiguity because they recognize more patterns. More successful leaders are better able to change their perspectives than less successful leaders. Krippendorff calls this ability "frame shifting."

For example, Grandmaster chess players recognize many more situations vs. expert chess players. They bring more perspectives to their game and use different experience frames to see that winning move when their opponent is narrowly focused or frozen in confusion.

Amazon is a good example of "frame-shifting." The recent announcement that Amazon would enter the tablet fray with the release of a new $200 tablet called the Kindle Fire was aboutfar morethan the CPU speeds or the future shape of media distribution.

So what is Amazon's frame-shift? According to Krippendorff, "it's revealed in the quotes of executives who say they don't see the Fire as a device but as aservice. It is a natural extension of a service to deliver TV, movies, music, books, and other media to customers. While the rest of us are talking about devices and content, Amazon has moved onto a new game in which these distinctions no longer matter. Instead they see a seamless service that spreads across the physical (tablets, books, grocery items) and the intangible (content, safety of our personal data).

All of a sudden things are starting to make sense. Why is Amazon giving me two-day free shipping just because I paid $80 to join "Amazon Prime"? It always seemed odd to me - a great deal for me but some kind of miscalculation on their part. But now whenever I want something - we run out of diapers or toilet paper - I immediately log onto Amazon and the item is at my doorstep in 48 hours."

Amazon shifted from disconnected parts composed of books and devices and shipping, and instead started looking at their business model as a service. The seemingly random dots form a picture ... a strategic vision. This seamless service mindset is transforming behavior.

The longer it takes competitors to "get" this picture, the longer Amazon will have their competitors guessing.

Try this exercise with your leadership team the next time you are focusing on a challenge. Shift your team's perspective seven times on a single problem. This frame shifting can produce between four and ten times as many possible solutions to that problem.

What is the unique frame you are taking on your business?
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Concepts from Kaihan Krippendorff, author ofArt of the Advantage

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Article Tags: competition, frame shift, Kaihan Krippendorff, outthink



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