Essence of Frame Reflection: Distinguishing between Disagreement and Intractable Controversy
I have put together this note to introduce the idea of ‘frame reflection’ and how it allows us to discover each other’s ‘frame of reference’ or ‘mental model’ so that we make definitive progress towards solving complex problem without being emotionally stranded in our ideologies.
In more than one way, it is a summary of core ideas discussed in the book Frame Reflection: Toward the Resolution of Intractable Policy Controversies, Donald A. Schön and Martin Rein, (New York: Basic Books, 1994).
Policy Disagreement and Policy Controversy
Schön and Rein define a policy disagreement to be a dispute “in which the parties to contention are able to resolve the questions at the heart of their disputes by examining the facts of the situation…disputes can be settled by recourse to evidence to which all the contending parties will agree.”
For example, the level of youth unemployment, compensation needed for loss of life or property in a flood, etc. can be resolved by examining evidence. In short, the parties will be able to identify the areas of difference and the facts that are relevant to resolving the differences. The effort in such a situation is focused on collecting the required information, identifying the analysis that needs to be conducted, choosing the appropriate tool for analysis and building insights from the results of our analysis.
A policy controversy is not “immune to resolution by appeal to the facts.” For example, impact of human choices on environment, need for or choice of welfare measures, causes of criminal behaviour, etc.
The damage that Intractable Controversies can cause!
Schön & Rein argue that intractable controversy “undermine public learning” and are “threat to a liberal democracy”, as the society “has a limited capacity to manage policy contention” and “our energy and intelligence are expended in the pursuit of win-lose policy games”. They further mention:
“Professions, such as law, economics, public administration, and public policy analysis, that might become vehicles for the resolution of controversies are captured by them instead and made to reinforce and reproduce them”.
Schön & Rein mention about the possibility of the boundary between disagreement and controversy being blurred or “a disagreement about facts turns out to mask an underlying controversy.”
Consequently, the empirical investigation may also become a purposeless effort. Facts don’t remain Facts in Controversies
- Selective attention, i.e., seeing different set of facts to be relevant. For example, “political conservatives tend to focus on data that pertain to economic competitiveness”, arguing that “the welfare expenditure erodes comparative advantage of industrialised countries and undermine their ability to compete with Third World industry”. Dismissing the affordability argument, the liberals “focus on data that demonstrate the need for income support or the inequity of income distribution”.
- Different interpretations of the same facts, for example, “a secular trend that shows an increase in the proportion of men not working may be seen either as evidence of a decrease in opportunities for work or as a deterioration in the will to work”.
What underlies a frame and how does it impact our conversations and the choices?
Schön & Rein state that policy positions rest “on underlying structures of beliefs, perception, and appreciation”, which are the frames for policy choices and these frames are often held tacitly.
Policy controversy results from the conflicting frames that parties involved may be holding. Consequently, facts and evidence start playing a limited role in choice-making.
A story that an individual narrates can help identify the frame that is guiding his or her arguments and is expected to determine the choices that the person will make or recommend.
They support their argument by citing an example from urban renewal debates in the 1950s and 60s.
One set of arguments saw the problem as the “troublesome situation” where the description was centred around “what was wrong” and therefore what should be done to fix it – “The community, once healthy, has become blighted and diseased”…”it can “become healthy…through redesign of the whole area…otherwise revert again to a…slum area, as though possessed of a congenital disease.”
Another set of arguments saw them as natural community, where “For the great majority of the people, the local area was a focus for strongly positive sentiments and was perceived, probably in multiple meanings, as home.”
Stories that we construct are the stories that our frames allow us to Construct
Schön & Rein argue that each “story constructs its view of social reality through a complementary process of naming and framing…the two processes construct a problem out of the vague and indeterminate reality that John Dewey calls a problematic situation.” Selective attention allows the story to fit the frame that individuals carry.
The first is the story of blight – a disease that is to be cured, and second that of functioning social community that must be protected or restored. In the first case, the cure cannot be a “mere palliative” and it requires “removal of offensive structures”. In the second case, the social community must not be threatened with destruction as it provides “homelike stability and informal network mutual support”. While each of the frames makes it easier, for the person holding it, to formulate a problem, it does not necessary help make a choice that is socially and economically feasible and desirable.
A frame that sees the situation as a disease or a blot is expected to seek solutions that involve surgery, e.g., demolish the slums, redevelop the land and let the developed land be sold for different purposes so that the redevelopment can pay for itself.
If the frame is that of the slum being a natural community, it is expected that the solution would lie in the government finding the required budgetary resources to improve living conditions, help enhance the earnings capability so that the people can afford to pay for the maintenance cost associating with common infrastructure and their dwellings and the cost of maintenance is met from public resources till the community builds the ability to financially sustain itself. One of the premises of the second set of arguments is that people don’t live in abject conditions by choice.
Indeterminate Situations and Intractable Controversies in Business Context
One of the most intractable controversy of our time in business context is about organisation purpose.
- Who does the organisation exist for – shareholders, employees, consumers, partners, society at large, etc.?
- What are the trade-offs involved when each one is expected to give their best?
- Who makes these trade-offs and what criteria do we use to make these trade-offs?
- What are the unintended consequences of each of the trade-offs, if any?
All of us have faced these questions more than once in our organisational life. What frame does one use in this context?
