[Professor Robert Prentice] In any kind of decision-making, context counts.
The simple reframing of a situation or a question can produce a totally different answer from
the same person.
For example, people would rather buy a hamburger made of meat labeled seventy-five percent
fat free than meat labeled twenty-five percent fat.
In fact, when questioned, these people will tell you that the seventy-five percent fat-free
burger tastes better than the twenty-five percent fat burger, even though the burgers
are identical.
[Robert] How an issue is framed is definitely one of the most important parts of when you're
considering something.
[Nicole] Of course when people are framing things, they’re going to try to make it
as good as possible.
They’re not going to show you the bad; they’re not going to show you the negative.
When NASA was deciding whether to launch the ill-fated space shuttle Challenger,
Morton Thiokol's engineers at first opposed the launch on safety grounds.
But when their general manager instructed the engineers to, "put on their management hats,"
he reframed the decision from one focusing on safety to one focusing on dollars and cents.
The engineers then, unfortunately, changed their decision.
We need to look beyond the obvious frame of reference in business,
"Will this be a profitable decision?"
and consider our actions from a broader ethical perspective like,
"How will this look when it's reported on the front page of the newspaper?"
[Ellen] So right now there's the big abortion debate in Washington, and I think that's
a really good example of framing because you have two groups of people with noble goals.
There are people that want to protect women's health and reproductive issues, but then there's
also people that want to protect the lives of the unborn children.
When you have an issue explained to you, you have to examine how it’s framed because
people that are explaining issues to you are biased in themselves.
Decisions made by business people often occur in a context where subjective factors predominate,
and the framing of an issue is particularly influential.
In Enron's declining days, the company attempted to save money by encouraging employees to
minimize travel expenses.
An Enron employee later wrote that he intentionally flouted the new policy.
While this seems like a clear ethical lapse, in the employee's mind, he deserved to stay
in the most expensive hotels and to eat at the best restaurants
because of how very hard he was working.
He framed the issue in terms of his narrow self-interest, and not in the broader ethical
context of adhering to company policy.
[Michael] There was a class that I had a homework assignment in and I forgot about it.
I just straight forgot.
When I emailed the teacher and said I forgot, I didn’t necessarily say it as plainly as,
"Oh I just forgot about it, is there any chance I can still do it?"
I put a little bit of a spin on it of, "I've been really busy, and there was this,
and there was that, and I'm so sorry I didn’t get to it."
CFOs and accounting personnel at Enron, HealthSouth, and other scandal-ridden companies didn't need
a philosophy course to help them figure out that their manipulation of financial statements
was unethical.
Their problem was that at the time of their actions, their frame of reference was loyalty
to the company and to the company's goal of maximizing stock price.
Had those employees been able to think in terms of the bigger ethical picture,
for example, the impact of their action on other people's pension funds,
they might have acted differently.
One of the things you can do is try to have as much information about it as possible from
as many different views as possible.
Asking other people, preferably, obviously, third party people.
You know, somebody who the decision doesn’t affect whatsoever.
Making sure that you’re constantly challenging yourself and your ideas about what you believe in.
[Todd] It’s kind of being cognizant of who you’re talking to, what they’re feeling,
where they’re coming from.
[Jeff] For me it helps if I have other people to bounce ideas off of.
And other people that have very different backgrounds from me that can really call me
if I’m not evaluating a certain issue.