2: Are you anchoring on a solution?
My favorite business school professor, Patrick Noonan, gives a great lecture about bias in decision making. He covers twelve common decision biases – including anchoring bias. Through the class exercises, without fail, students demonstrate their susceptibility to anchors in their decision making.
WHAT IS ANCHORING? Humans tend to fixate or anchor on the first piece of information (say a price) from which all other options are compared (with the anchor serving as a norm). This impacts our judgment and decisions.
You’ve likely seen anchoring at work dozens of times this week - the “good” “better” “best” pricing options for software, gym memberships, and airplane seats.
One of my life design students kicked off class with a design challenge. Ellen wanted to pivot her career to work in policy or advocacy for underserved populations. Her background was in marketing and copywriting. The questions she posed to the group: “Which school should I attend? Med school, Law school, or MBA school?”
Her initial challenge had a few answers, and anchors baked in. The assumption: the path to a career in advocacy was only available with an advanced degree. This is a pretty common assumption, especially for women. We anchor on credentials and degrees to offset imposter syndrome. Earning a degree is a significant investment. My advice to her: prototype the three careers first and see if there is a more straightforward path to save time and money.
You may have been living with an anchor for so many years, and the problem seems insurmountable. Anchor problems may be hard, but they are actionable.
THE REFRAME: Look for assumptions or solutions baked into your problem. Be open-minded to new approaches. Try knocking your question down to size and testing one aspect of it. Share your problem with a friend to see if she can spot the anchors.
Ellen decided to interview one person in each field: health advocacy, legal advocacy, and marketing. She tested the notion that an advanced degree was the next best step and narrowed down her options.
3: Is your framing too narrow?
Life designer, Julie, was getting ready to leave her company of 10 years as her industry was changing, and layoffs were imminent. The question she brought to the group: “How do I find another job in partnership marketing in the magazine publishing industry in South Carolina?”
If your initial question has too many constraints, your frame may be too narrow. Don’t get me wrong; constraints are real. I regularly encourage folks to include geography, time, and financial boundaries in their problem challenges.
THE REFRAME: Examine and unpack each qualifier. What Julie loved was working with creative teams and artists. She did need to stay in South Carolina. We broadened her challenge; “How can I apply my talent in managing creative teams in the arts and culture fields.” Beyond publishing - music, arts, creative agencies were all new possibilities.
Spend time writing your problem down, then work through these three questions to refine it further. It may take 3-5 iterations to get the wording just right, and it helps GREATLY to ask someone else for feedback.
