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It’s October 30th, 1974. Aretha Franklin, Cher, and Steely Dan rule the radio.
And the famous ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ is taking place later that night between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman.
60,000 people will be in attendance, and it will be one of the most widely televised events ever. Foreman was 40 and 0 at the time and a 4 to 1 favorite over Ali.
He was also a young 25 years old compared to Ali who was 32. That’s ancient in boxing years.
Most people wondered how Ali could outpunch and outlast Foreman to win. Foreman was bigger, stronger, and younger.
But instead of asking how he could beat Foreman, Ali reframed the problem.
He asked: ‘How can I let Foreman beat himself?’
The answer was Ali’s now famous ‘rope-a-dope’ strategy. Ali spent 8 rounds leaning on the ropes and soaking up punches like a sponge while Foreman exhausted himself throwing haymakers that were largely absorbed by the elasticity in the ring ropes. And just when Foreman was exhausted, Ali knocked him out with a relentless barrage of punches.
People are great at solving problems. But they aren’t great at picking which problems to solve. People usually spend the least amount of time framing a problem and then spend a majority of time solving the wrong problem. Solving the wrong problem is like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic… with impressive efficiency.
For example, there was a serious problem in Delhi, India while it was under colonial control. There were way too many cobras. So British officials framed the problem as ‘How can we get people to kill more cobras?’
They started paying a bounty for any cobras that were killed. So people started breeding and murdering them so they could collect the bounty. The result was way more cobras. Bad frame equals bad results.
In the words of Peter Drucker: "The most serious mistakes are not being made as a result of wrong answers. The truly dangerous thing is asking the wrong questions".
So if problem framing is so important, how do you do it?
Step 1: Write down what you think the problem is.
Pretty self-explanatory here.
Step 2: Identify and question assumptions.
There are always assumptions and they usually aren’t questioned. If people are telling you ‘That’s how it’s always been done’ you've probably found an assumption to question.
Example: Coke assumed that beating out Pepsi in blind taste tests would solidify their place as the market leading cola. So they invented a newer better tasting formula called New Coke. It was a disaster. Customers wanted the stuff they grew up with and were emotionally connected to. Not this new weird tasting stuff.
Step 3: Rethink the goal.
The first goal that you have probably isn’t the right one. I like to write out a list of 10 alternative goals to get my creativity flowing.
Example: Waze could have just built a better Google maps. They could have just figured out how to be a little more precise and clear with their directions. The original goal might have been building a better directions app. Instead, their goal was 'how do we use real-time, user driven data to save people time?'
That’s why Google acquired them for $1.3BN in 2013.
Step 4: Look at what's working.
Sometimes it’s less about fixing negatives and more about doubling down on positives.
Example: Zappos was trying to decrease return rates in its early days. Instead of asking what they could change in the return process, they looked at why their best customers came back. They tripled down on that by empowering customer service reps to do things like send free pizza and purchase shoes from other sites when their stock was out. This built raving fans and a company that sold to Amazon for $1.2BN.
Step 5: Walk a mile in their shoes.
Certain things just can't be understood without experiencing them.
Example: David Rockwell volunteered to design a 9/11 memorial. One of the toughest questions was understanding how to contrast the grave and serious nature of the day without upsetting victims, survivors, and family members of the fallen. Rockwell and team walked a mile in these people’s shoes by interviewing survivors and family members (among other techniques). The result is a memorial that guides people through alternating emotional states of sadness and joy instead of one long ‘downer’ of a memorial.
Step 6: Continue the problem framing and solution process in tandem.
This is an iterative process. Build in feedback loops and be encouraged by new information and reframes.
Example: YouTube started out as a video dating app. The idea was that users could upload videos about themselves and their dating preferences to find partners. It flopped. But users were posting plenty of videos about everything else in their life. So the founders pivoted to uploading and sharing video content easily. The rest is history.
To wrap this all up, problem framing is the steering wheel, intelligence is just the engine. Going fast doesn’t work if you’re headed in the wrong direction.
We’ll end with the obligatory Steve Jobs quote: ‘If you define the problem correctly, you almost have the solution.’
And the famous ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ is taking place later that night between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman.
60,000 people will be in attendance, and it will be one of the most widely televised events ever. Foreman was 40 and 0 at the time and a 4 to 1 favorite over Ali.
He was also a young 25 years old compared to Ali who was 32. That’s ancient in boxing years.
Most people wondered how Ali could outpunch and outlast Foreman to win. Foreman was bigger, stronger, and younger.
But instead of asking how he could beat Foreman, Ali reframed the problem.
He asked: ‘How can I let Foreman beat himself?’
The answer was Ali’s now famous ‘rope-a-dope’ strategy. Ali spent 8 rounds leaning on the ropes and soaking up punches like a sponge while Foreman exhausted himself throwing haymakers that were largely absorbed by the elasticity in the ring ropes. And just when Foreman was exhausted, Ali knocked him out with a relentless barrage of punches.
People are great at solving problems. But they aren’t great at picking which problems to solve. People usually spend the least amount of time framing a problem and then spend a majority of time solving the wrong problem. Solving the wrong problem is like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic… with impressive efficiency.
For example, there was a serious problem in Delhi, India while it was under colonial control. There were way too many cobras. So British officials framed the problem as ‘How can we get people to kill more cobras?’
They started paying a bounty for any cobras that were killed. So people started breeding and murdering them so they could collect the bounty. The result was way more cobras. Bad frame equals bad results.
In the words of Peter Drucker: "The most serious mistakes are not being made as a result of wrong answers. The truly dangerous thing is asking the wrong questions".
So if problem framing is so important, how do you do it?
Step 1: Write down what you think the problem is.
Pretty self-explanatory here.
Step 2: Identify and question assumptions.
There are always assumptions and they usually aren’t questioned. If people are telling you ‘That’s how it’s always been done’ you've probably found an assumption to question.
Example: Coke assumed that beating out Pepsi in blind taste tests would solidify their place as the market leading cola. So they invented a newer better tasting formula called New Coke. It was a disaster. Customers wanted the stuff they grew up with and were emotionally connected to. Not this new weird tasting stuff.
Step 3: Rethink the goal.
The first goal that you have probably isn’t the right one. I like to write out a list of 10 alternative goals to get my creativity flowing.
Example: Waze could have just built a better Google maps. They could have just figured out how to be a little more precise and clear with their directions. The original goal might have been building a better directions app. Instead, their goal was 'how do we use real-time, user driven data to save people time?'
That’s why Google acquired them for $1.3BN in 2013.
Step 4: Look at what's working.
Sometimes it’s less about fixing negatives and more about doubling down on positives.
Example: Zappos was trying to decrease return rates in its early days. Instead of asking what they could change in the return process, they looked at why their best customers came back. They tripled down on that by empowering customer service reps to do things like send free pizza and purchase shoes from other sites when their stock was out. This built raving fans and a company that sold to Amazon for $1.2BN.
Step 5: Walk a mile in their shoes.
Certain things just can't be understood without experiencing them.
Example: David Rockwell volunteered to design a 9/11 memorial. One of the toughest questions was understanding how to contrast the grave and serious nature of the day without upsetting victims, survivors, and family members of the fallen. Rockwell and team walked a mile in these people’s shoes by interviewing survivors and family members (among other techniques). The result is a memorial that guides people through alternating emotional states of sadness and joy instead of one long ‘downer’ of a memorial.
Step 6: Continue the problem framing and solution process in tandem.
This is an iterative process. Build in feedback loops and be encouraged by new information and reframes.
Example: YouTube started out as a video dating app. The idea was that users could upload videos about themselves and their dating preferences to find partners. It flopped. But users were posting plenty of videos about everything else in their life. So the founders pivoted to uploading and sharing video content easily. The rest is history.
To wrap this all up, problem framing is the steering wheel, intelligence is just the engine. Going fast doesn’t work if you’re headed in the wrong direction.
We’ll end with the obligatory Steve Jobs quote: ‘If you define the problem correctly, you almost have the solution.’
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