#480  from Innovative Leader Volume 9, Number 7          July 2000

Don’t Ignore Culture When You Frame a Problem 
by Margaret J. King, Ph.D. and J. G. O’Boyle

Dr. King directs, and Mr. O’Boyle is a senior analyst, at Cultural Studies & Analysis, a Philadelphia-based think tank that studies decision making. Email: cultureking@compuserve.com

Millions of dollars are routinely wasted in thinking up stunningly creative solutions--to the wrong problems.  The hastily defined problem statement is the first enemy of creativity because it can kill off an entire dimension of promising solutions before they can even be considered. A constant parade of very solvable problems are locked into perpetual motion by a simple mistaken premise.

Without a clear problem frame, people will select answers that intrigue them for the wrong reasons.  We are geniuses at solving problems that are comfortable, convenient or compatible with our skills--the problems we’d like to solve, in preference to those that actually need solving.

Solve the Right Problem

In fact, this principle pertains to the nature of business itself.  We’ve asked hundreds of executives, “What is the goal of business?” More than 99% said either “To make money” or “To increase shareholder value.”

However, a few answered, “To build a secure platform,” “To grow and prosper,” “To discover new markets and fill them.”  In this minority of executives, the first goal of business is to stay alive, the second is to continue by providing ongoing and recognized value. “Making money” is not a goal, but an inevitable and consistent outcome of getting the process right. Corporations can invite major problems when their ventures are based solely on accounting principles.  Cultural considerations should be given at least equal weight in framing business goals.

An example of a mis-framed problem is one the media has dubbed “air rage” – airline passengers physically or verbally assaulting cabin crew. The airlines concluded that the problem lay with the passengers – people were simply meaner, ruder, more aggressive than in the “good old days.” The solution they lobbied for, and got: a law making it a federal crime to assault an airline flight attendant.

But as a Northwest Airlines cabin steward told us, “It doesn’t happen up here.” “Here” was the spacious, well-served atmosphere of International Business Class.  Of course not. With complimentary drinks, hot meals on china, plenty of leg and arm room, attentive service, even comfy slippers--what would anyone have to get enraged about?

But framing the problem as a response to cramped conditions, loss of control over space, time, and social relations would involve dealing with the real problems of air travel; not the more easily managed problems such as price or scheduling, but the human factors of air travel itself.  In the air, for example, food service is far more than nutrition and calories; it is the ritual that civilizes the entire trip. Personal space and meals, which are being cut consistently to save a small margin from the bottom line, are precisely the sort of problems that passengers notice first and forget last.  Airlines are defining their problems in terms of dollars, while their customers define the problem against a mental checklist of culturally validated standards.  American Airlines is finally showing this understanding with its recent “leg room” campaign based on fewer seats per cabin.

In another example, the milk industry sees itself in a competitive battle with soft drinks. It’s a battle they can’t win, because people generally don’t use milk as a beverage. When the US sent aid to refugees in Kosovo, a spokesman mentioned only two items specifically--medicine and milk.  The audience understood that we weren’t sending milk because the Kosovars were thirsty. Milk is food.  To sell their product effectively, the milk industry must focus on food-related values. They can’t win a head-to-head battle with soda, which not only has the competitive edge as a far cheaper and more satisfying beverage, but also fits the consumer’s mental “footprint’ for “beverage” in a way milk never can.

Cultural Perspective

Many problems persist because recognition of potential solutions is tied directly to the identity of the problem itself.  Cultural analysis turns up unexamined premises at the core of every public relations crisis or “create demand” project.  By looking at the problem behind the problem, it is possible to diagnose and reframe some important assumptions.

 “Don’t just stand there, do something!” is a common expression. So is “Shoot first, ask questions later.” No thinking is called for in either scenario. For executives, this cultural bias towards quick and decisive action seems to rank cause and effect in reverse order. If business leaders can’t grasp this basic distinction, it is unlikely that they are in a good position to know where their problems lie, or how to frame them.

The “values economy” approach, based on how the buyer actually makes decisions, often reveals assumptions that created the problem in the first place.  These are not technical, marketing or pricing problems.  They are problems based in how people think, and they require solid knowledge of the way people actually use space, time, money, identity and objects to relate to the world around them.

The problem frame should focus on what people value, then develop the product as the means to deliver it. This works for products as diverse as cake mix, diamonds, auto transmissions, banking services or swimming pools. The consumer makes decisions by a set of cultural values that can be defined and predicted. Solutions come from understanding the problem frame and filling it.

It isn’t that we don’t stress defining the problem. It’s that we have a strong preference for the idea-generation stage over front-end groundwork. Yet the “fuzzy front end” is exactly where the real creativity takes place. A successful solution depends on the frame imposed on the problem very early in the process, long before possible solutions are generated or selected. We have an unfortunate tendency to leapfrog directly into the middle of the process.  What is critical, and what will save both time and money, is to first consider a problem within a cultural framework. Then, our creativity will more likely solve the real--rather than what was initially perceived--problem.