It’s funny sometimes how you can be exposed to something for a long time, have an established viewpoint about it, and then a sudden realization will change your whole paradigm.
This happened to me a while back around a technique an old coach of mine frequently employed in creating and referencing constant frameworks and designations. He’s one of those guys who names everything. For example, it’s not a “conversational technique to get to the heart of matters”, it’s the “567 Method”.
For the longest time, I saw that type of stuff as marketing schtick. Over the top marketing is not my style, so I sort of rolled my eyes and dismissed it. However, I’ve come to realize there’s more at play here. By building a framework you’re packaging up a system and information, which makes it a faster and more efficient method to teach, spread ideas, and get more done in your life.
He wasn’t trying (much) to market, he was sharing frameworks to facilitate growth and impact.
What is a framework?
At its core, a framework is simply a basic structure underlying a system. I know that’s a dry mouthful, so in plain English it’s a mental tool for repeating a process over and over again to get predictably favorable results. This could take many forms including recipes, acronyms, series of questions, or mental flowcharts.
Why do you want to include frameworks in your life?
A framework is going to be faster than building a new plan from scratch. When you’re confronted by a novel situation, it takes time and some guesswork to figure out the best course of action, right?
The truth is that most of what we encounter in our daily life isn’t a novel situation. Life operates in patterns and most of the time we’ll be running up against something similar to what we or someone else has seen before. This means there’s an opportunity to build a predefined way of solving this problem, or at least getting most of the way there.
This allows for much greater speed to a solution. Instead of casting around for ideas or looking for a successful path, you can follow the steps you know.
Let’s say you want to bake a cake. If you don’t know how to do that, then you’re probably going to be in for some rough experiments and sad birthdays until you end up with something that could pass for a chocolate with peanut butter frosting.
So what do you do? You find and follow a recipe, which is really a framework for cake baking. Now, even if you don’t have much experience, with a good recipe you can turn out a decent cake on the first try.
Utilizing frameworks helps speed learning, as well. Adults learn by a process called “scaffolding”. Basically, you take new information that comes in and try to apply it to what you already know. Over time this new information becomes assimilated and you build a “scaffold”.
Having a framework gives you more points that you can connect to existing knowledge, as opposed to just throwing random bits of info at the wall and hoping something sticks. The faster you can find something already in your wheelhouse to relate to ,the faster you’ll have that “lightbulb moment” where it makes sense.
A Framework can be a mnemonic device or some other memory tool.
Most frameworks can be named, as my coach Paul does, or turned into some easier method to remember what to do. If you’re in the middle of a situation it can be hard to remember all of the nuanced steps to solve a problem. Having a simple framework to remember (bonus points if it’s catchy) then you’re more likely to follow it.
If you grew up in the United States you probably still remember what to do if you somehow catch on fire: Stop – Drop – Roll. The “Stop-Drop-and-Roll” method is a simple framework that hopefully you can imagine in a survival state, where you probably won’t have the time or wherewithal to think logically. Instead of running off aflame with your arms in the air, you’ll be more likely to do something helpful.
The fourth reason to use frameworks is that it allows you to adjust and troubleshoot much faster and more efficiently.
By having a step-by-step system, whether it’s explicitly written out or just a known structure, you can more easily see where in the chain something breaks down. This allows you to make adjustments without throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Let’s look at a basic product sales framework as an example.
Our hypothetical offer will have four steps:
- Customer Identification/Advertising
- Initial Offer
- Order Fulfillment
- Customer Reorder or Upsell
If you’re not getting the revenue you want and don’t have this structure figured out, what do you do? You probably have to scrap the whole product and start all over again.
But what if you take a look at your framework and you realize that you’re doing well on the amount of people buying the offer but there’s a sharp drop-off when it comes to the second purchases (Step 4)?
This tells you that you’re doing great at getting new customers but something is off with either the delivery of the product or your re-engagement strategy. Now you’re not starting from scratch and you know right where you need to look to solve the problem, saving time and energy.
For a “softer” example, let’s say you’re trying to drop some pounds for the upcoming summer season. Everything’s going along well for a while but then your progress stalls at the dreaded plateau.
If your plan has been “eat less and move more”, you don’t really know where to look for answers except “eat even less and move even more”, which is a bad spiral to get down. On the other hand, if you have even a simple structure to your training and nutrition you can start digging in a little bit. Upon examination perhaps you realize that you have a tendency to do more late-night snacking than you thought. This jumps out at you because you have a frame to look at.
Some of my favorite frameworks.
You can turn almost any repetitive task or situation into a framework, as we’ll see later, but to give you some examples here’s a couple that I apply to almost all of my clients.
The Anytime vs Workout Meal Framework
I’m not a huge fan of micromanaging diets, especially in the long run. I find that most people who try to manage every number down to the gram run into trouble as life gets in their way. You can pull it off for a while with a specific target, but ultimately you’re setting yourself up for aggravation.
Enter the Anytime vs Workout Meal.
Each meal is based on an amount of protein. What is variable is the amount of carbohydrates vs fat and vegetables.
Around workouts, you’d want a meal that had more carbohydrates and less fat and vegetables.
At other times of the day, you’d want the opposite.
Without getting into the weeds on nutrition, this allows you to very quickly decide what you should be eating at a certain time of the day. Knowing what to do quickly helps reduce the decision fatigue that would make it more likely for you to throw your hands up and just grab what looks delicious at the time… which may not be in the best interest for your nutrition.
Another framework I like is my 3 S-Circles of Leadership.
Imagine leadership as three concentric circles, each built upon the other.
In the middle you have Self-Leadership. Everyone is a leader of someone, even if it’s only themselves. As a good self-leader you must be able to provide your own direction and see that you accomplish your goals before you can lead others effectively.
The next step would be Specific Leadership. There are areas where you’ll grow to be a recognized expert in, through experience, knowledge, or even circumstance. Along this channel you would be considered a leader, but not necessarily outside of it.
Finally, as you build enough experience and respect there’s a point to where you’d earn the right to be a leader in most any situation. These are the sphere leaders and it’s all built on their ability to lead themselves and in a specific area.
Utilizing this framework you not only can see a clear path to growth but also it gives you places to check for breakdown if there’s a leadership issue.
Ok, so how do we start building frameworks?
First of all, copy and model liberally. There’s a lot of “off the shelf” frameworks in all areas of life: Business, fitness, family, and so on. Bookstores are full of them and the internet abounds.
That being said, there’s great utility in building your own frameworks and systems. While there’s a lot of commonality in our bodies and our lives, you’re uniquely you and that means that what works best for you probably won’t be something out of a jar.
I have a simple four-step process I use when I’m building a new framework.
1 – After the situation is over, I analyze what happened. This can be as formal as a full After Action Report or it can be just some simple reflection.
2 – I look for any commonalities or patterns to some other experience or existing framework I have. This gives me a bit of a head start and a direction to go in.
3 – Search for outliers and “pattern breaking” events. By now you’ve started to structure your new framework so mentally try to break it. What would be the situations where it wouldn’t work? What would give you a screwy result?
If there’s a lot of variables that can break it then probably it’s not going to be very effective. Adjust or tighten it down. Chances are you won’t create something 100% airtight, but get close. Remember, the whole point of a framework is repeatable results so you want that reliability.
4 – Finally, test and iterate. Put it in play with your own situation and/or others if you’re going to teach it. From there every pass through you’ll probably find little tweaks or adjustments that make it better.
5 – (Optional but helpful) Develop an easy way for you to remember it. This could be an acronym or other mnemonic device (my 3 S-Circles above) or even just a title so you can communicate it clearly, such as Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
I used to resist frameworks because I thought they were gimmicky and I was concerned about losing my uniqueness. The truth is, they aren’t going to make you into a robot. Instead they allow you to free up energy currently spent on the mundane and allow you to spend it in higher, richer, and more exciting directions.
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