A lesson in reframing — and why it might be the most powerful tool in a leader's kit
There's a clothing store in Calgary that puts quotes above its door. My
colleague Darren came across one on a pocket square that stopped him, and when
he shared it with me, it stopped me too:
“When you change the way you look at the world, the world you look at
changes.”
Read it again slowly. It's not a platitude. It's a description of
something that actually happens inside you, and inside the people you lead.
The way we see a situation determines how we respond to it. Change the
frame, and the entire landscape shifts. What looked like a dead end becomes a
detour. What felt like a threat becomes a signal. What seemed like failure
becomes data.
What Reframing
Actually Is
The term is literal. Think about a picture on a wall. Change the frame -
make it wider, narrower, plain or ornate - and you change what you see and
feel. The picture is identical. But your experience of it isn't.
That's what reframing does with a problem, a setback, a person. You're
not denying reality. You're choosing how to hold it. And that choice - quiet,
deliberate, often taking only seconds - changes everything that follows.
The 600 Euros on the
Wall
I've experienced reframing many times, but one moment stands out above
the rest. A decade ago, I was on a family holiday in Turkey — on a bus heading
to Cappadocia, a region famous for its strange, sculptural landscape and its
hot air balloons.
The man sitting next to me — a stranger — asked if I was looking forward
to the ballooning. I hesitated. 150 euros a person, four of us. That's 600
euros. I told him I didn't think so. Too expensive.
He didn't try to convince me. Instead, he said:
"We're stopping soon. Come with me to the ATM and take out 600
euros. Then we'll go to that shop next door and buy a frame. You take it home,
hang it on the wall. When friends come over, you point to it and say — see
that? That's the 600 euros I saved by not going hot air ballooning in
Cappadocia."
Something shifted. In an instant, the 600 euros stopped being money
spent and became a memory we'd carry forever. We signed up that afternoon.
That hot air balloon ride over Cappadocia is one of the defining moments
of my family's time in Turkey. I've thought about it many times since — and
I've thought even more about the stranger on the bus who changed how I saw it
before I'd even seen it.
What This Looks Like
Right Now
The world your team leaders are navigating today is full of moments that
need a better frame. Here are a few you'll recognise:
AI and automation anxiety. Many teams are
worried that AI is coming for their jobs. The common frame: threat. The
reframe: AI is taking the low-value, repetitive work off your plate so you can
focus on the things only a human can do, such as, judgment, relationships,
creativity, leadership. That's not a threat. That's a promotion.
A team missing its targets. The common frame: failure.
The reframe: you now have more information than you had before. A missed target
is a detailed map of exactly what needs to change. The team that missed and
learned is better positioned than the team that hit and doesn't know why.
A difficult performance conversation. The
common frame: confrontation to avoid. The reframe: the conversation
you're dreading is actually the most respectful thing you can do. Saying
nothing isn't kindness, it's abandonment. Saying something, clearly and with
care, is what leaders do for people they believe in.
Organisational change and uncertainty. The
common frame: instability. The reframe: disruption is the moment when
influence is redistributed. The people who step forward with clarity and
confidence during uncertainty don't just survive change, they shape it. This is
when leadership actually matters most.
How to Use It This
Week
In your next conversation with a team leader who is stuck, frustrated,
or overwhelmed, try this:
Step 1: Let them describe the
problem fully. Don't interrupt. Listen for the frame, that is, the word they
keep using, the emotion underneath it. Is it unfair? Impossible? Too late?
That's the frame.
Step 2: Ask one question: "What
would this look like if it were actually useful to you?" Not
"what's the silver lining" - that's dismissive. This question asks
them to do the reframe themselves, which makes it land differently than if you
do it for them.
Step 3: Follow their answer.
If they can't get there, offer the reframe as a possibility, not a correction. "I
wonder if another way to look at this is…" Then watch what happens.
You're not trying to talk people out of their feelings. You're helping
them get out of a frame that isn't serving them, and into one that might.
