Behavioral Frames

Framing

One of the most important and formative concepts in effective communication is called framing.  Framing starts out with the assumption that we all view the world, hear the stories of the world, have a sense or carry a feeling about the world and all the issues in the world through preconceived frames.  

Framing is always present and necessary in order to help us understand and place significance on our experience of life. We require frames in order to be able to understand complexity in a simple way. So we have frames like ‘my family’. It is a two-word phrase that encompasses something different for everybody but it has a very specific meaning. These are words that immediately evoke significance or meaning. In marketing this is often referred to as packaging or branding. In psychology it would simply be called a way of framing things.

George Lakoff’s book on framing called “Don’t Think of an Elephant” subtitled Know Your Values and Frame the Debate starts out with the idea that by simply saying a few words you can essentially take control of another person’s brain.

If I say to you, “Don’t think of an elephant,” how do you know how not to think of an elephant? You have to think of an elephant to know not to think of it. So by saying, “OK, I don’t want you to think about a blue elephant”, it’s now even more complex. And still, in order to know what not to think about you have to think about it, which establishes the frame ‘here is what not to think about’ but really frames the meaning within it, which is ‘the elephant’.

Frames of Reference

The models we construct to guide our behavior will constitute frames of reference for accessing personal resources. The following reference frames are meant to draw attention to the experience in ways that enrich and empower your choices.

Creating Frames

A psychological ‘frame’ refers to a general focus or direction that provides an overall guidance for thoughts and actions during an interaction. In this sense, frames relate to the cognitive context surrounding a particular event or experience. As the term implies, a ‘frame’ establishes the borders and constraints surrounding an interaction.

Frames greatly influence the way in which specific experiences and events are interpreted and responded to because of how they serve to ‘punctuate’ those experiences and direct attention. Frames also help to make interactions more efficient because they determine which information and issues fall within or outside of the purpose of an interaction.

NLP Reframing – putting a spin on things

We base NLP reframing on the idea that all meaning depends on your point of view. To reframe something is to change its meaning by putting it in a different setting, context or frame. For instance, a nasty experience can seem funny when put in a long-term frame.

The meaning of any event depends on how we frame it. When we change the frame we change the meaning and with it our responses and behaviors. For instance if someone goes to a party dressed as a skeleton the meaning is different depending on whether it is Halloween or a funeral.

Reframing is not new. Many fables and fairy tales show how behaviors change their meaning when the frames changes. The different looking chick seems to be an ugly duckling when it had been comparing itself to all the other ducks, but now it is a beautiful swan.

Behavioral Frames

In NLP, the models we construct to guide our behavior will constitute a reference frame for accessing resources. The NLP Behavioral Frames are meant to draw attention to the experience in ways that  enrich and empower your choices.

The Outcome Frame

What do you want? vs. What is wrong?

What you are moving toward? vs. What you are moving away from? 

The outcome frame is the single most powerful organizing principle in this model and will be discussed in further detail below.  It is a behavioral manifestation of moving from a set of environmental variables to a set of choice variables. Without an outcome there is no means to evaluate progress. The focus of attention is on what is desired versus what is wrong.  The organizing question is “What do you want?”

A well-formed outcome includes:

1. End Result: What specifically do you want?
2. Context: When, where and with whom do you want it?
3. Evidence: How will you know when you have it?
4. Roadblocks: What stops you from having it now?
5. Ecology: What will happen when you get it? The effects it will produce on yourself and others.
6. Resource: What resources do you have or need in order to get what you want?
7. Self-Initiated: Is it within your own power to achieve and maintain the outcome
8. Planning: What will be your first step? 

    If you don’t get the results you want, what will you do? 

    If you do get your results, what will you do next

8. Benefit: What will having it do for you?

The Feedback Frame

Is this feedback vs. a failure?

What needs to be done differently? vs. What went wrong? 

Feedback encourages and elicits adaptation of resources. 

Failure blames and inhibits movement. Feedback uses evidence of not having reached the outcome as an impetus to try something else, to be flexible and persistent in continuing to move toward the outcome. The organizing questions are “Where are we now?”, “What have we learned?” and “What do we need to do differently now?”

The Possibilities Frame   

Possibilities vs. Limitations

What can happen? vs. What can’t?  

How can limitations become opportunities?

Perceiving any experience through a filter of possibilities will reframe and create options and resources.  The operating question here is “What’s possible in this situation?”

The Process Frame — How or Why

Structure and process vs. Excuses and justification

‘How’ evokes states of curiosity and resourcefulness and will tend to elicit the process involved. If you can find out how someone does something, then you will know what needs to be different. ‘Why’ evokes beliefs, reasons and causes, and sometimes defensive justifications and rationalizations.

Questions focus attention and it is generally recognized by experts in the field of communication studies that the person asking the question is in control of the situation. Questions have the added capability of installing information through what is presupposed in the question itself. Acquiring the habit of posing effective questions begins with an internal shift in thinking from reasons to process elicitation. 

The organizing question is “How can we make this happen?”

The As If Frame 

This reference frame is used to generate creative problem solving options to establish a context where there is increased freedom to bring out information by creating a contrary-to-fact situation.

It is useful whenever there is resistance to offering needed high quality information. “This is just pretend; it’s not real,” is one of the most useful ways for allowing people to explore different ways of being and responding. Imagining ‘as if’ a situation were the case removes it from the constraints of ‘reality’ or the past or limitations without penalty for making a mistake. 

A variation on the ‘as if’ frame is to ask someone to image doing something that they know they would never do. This allows them to be completely protected from any imagined unpleasant consequences so they can imagine freely.  However, they are also rehearsing what it would be like to actually do it.

To establish an ‘As If’ Frame use the following lead-in words and phrases:

• Let’s suppose that…
• If you were to…
• Can you act as if…
• Pretend that I am …

Types of  ‘As If’ Frames:

• Person switch – If you were me, what…
• Time switch – Act as if it was six months down the road…
• Function switch – If you could change any part of the operation…
• Information switch – Let’s suppose we had that information…

The Backtrack Frame

The outcome here is to summarize previously covered information using the other person’s key words and tonalities. It is valuable to help build rapport and to clarify what you have covered in relation to where you are going.

• Establish frame – “Let’s review the important information that we’ve covered so far.”
• Backtrack – List the information covered, decisions made, criteria, beliefs or any important aspects of an interaction (meeting, gathering information, interview) that occurred.

Backtracking…

• Will provide acknowledgement.
• Builds rapport.
• Clarifies important issues.
• Provides evidence that you are present and attentive.
• Prevents jumping to conclusion.

Backtracking is helpful at the end of each session or meeting and especially in the completion of a project. It also can be useful at the beginning of a session or meeting to reference the prior meeting(s).

The Information Frame

How	elicits	Process
Who	elicits	Identification
What	elicits	Description
Which	elicits	Choice
When	elicits	Time
Where	elicits	Context
Why	elicits	Reasons, Justifications, Cause/Effect & Beliefs

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