Reframing Academic Leadership - Lee G. Bolman

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implications of each scenario before making a final decision.

      Step Outside Your Comfort Zone and Break Frame

      Imagine that you are with a group of friends enjoying dinner on the patio of a home. As you are finishing the jumbo shrimp and enjoying an excellent bottle of French wine, an armed, hooded intruder suddenly appears and points a gun at the head of a young female guest. “Give me your money,” he says, “or I'll start shooting.” If you're at that table, what do you do? Quietly hand over your wallet? Look for some way to resist? Something else?

      You could try to break frame. That is exactly what one of the guests did when this happened on a warm July evening. As everyone around her froze, Cristina “Cha Cha” Rowan spoke up. “We were just finishing dinner,” she blurted out. “Why don't you have a glass of wine with us?”

      The young intruder hesitated for a moment then grabbed the glass, took a sip of the Chateau Malescot St‐Exupéry, and said, “Damn, that's good.”

      The father of the young woman being held at gunpoint encouraged the intruder to finish the whole glass, and Rowan offered him the bottle. The robber, with his hood down now, took another sip and then a piece of food from the table. He put his gun away in the pocket of his sweatpants.

      “I may have come to the wrong house,” the intruder said before apologizing and backing away, carrying only the glass of wine.

      In one stroke, Cha Cha Rowan broke frame, transforming the situation for herself and others from “We might all be killed” to “Let's offer our guest some wine.” Pretty dramatic. Sure. But there's learning here for us all. Sometimes we just need a new perspective – and an opportunity to step back, take stock, and know that we have options. With calm and renewed confidence, we may find a route that gets us to a better place than we were before. An occasional skeptic has asked if the story is really true. The news accounts and police reports say yes; but even if apocryphal, this tale still makes its point. When you see what everyone else sees but think differently about it, you're on the path to finding more interesting possibilities and becoming a better, more creative leader.

      Sensemaking is at the heart of leadership, and it is particularly important in the complex and confusing world of higher education. It is a personal, interpretive, action‐oriented process involving three basic steps: noticing things, interpreting them, and deciding what to do about them. Intuitively and automatically, we do this by trying to match current information and circumstances to learned patterns or frames. Often, that process works well enough – our take on the situation tells us what to do, and we get results that are close enough to what we hoped for. But sometimes, we get it wrong – we overlook important information and miss what's really happening, misinterpret the data we have, or fail to see our options, and we go down a path to failure. When the world doesn't quite make sense and our actions keep producing the wrong results, it is time to reframe: to examine the world from alternative perspectives, seeking new ways to understand and new strategies to move ahead.

      Sarah didn't want to be department chair, but she reluctantly agreed to take the job. None of her colleagues wanted it, and “someone had to do it.” Now she wondered if she had made a mistake. A few of the “dinosaurs” – all male and all more senior than Sarah – seemed resistant to the idea that a younger woman was their “boss.” Sarah had tried to be cordial and supportive with everyone, but now she had to face the task she dreaded most: annual performance reviews. She stared glumly at one folder in particular: the performance materials for Professor George Hamden, a senior member of the department who held a distinguished endowed chair.

      George was a charming curmudgeon – witty, articulate, opinionated, and quick to criticize anything he didn't like. Loved by some, feared by others, he regularly undermined Sarah in department meetings with his entertaining but acerbic comments on almost any new idea or initiative that she brought to the floor. But what troubled her now was Hamden's deteriorating performance. “The truth is,” Sarah thought to herself, “he's been going downhill the last few years. His last publication was five years ago, and it wasn't very good. He claims he's got great work in progress, but where's the evidence? His teaching evaluations are down, and students are complaining that sometimes he doesn't even show up to class.”

      Sarah's musing about her dilemma was interrupted by a knock on the door. George was here for his assessment conference. She had to do her best. We'll eavesdrop on an abridged version of their conversation. As you read, note that the left column shows what they said to one another. The right column shows what Sarah tells us was happening in her mind as the meeting progressed.

       Sarah's Meeting with George

What was said: Sarah's thoughts and feelings:
S: George, thanks very much for coming. I'm glad we have this chance to talk. Start friendly and positive.
G: I hope I'll be glad as well. I wish I thought that was possible.
S: Of course. George, you know I have great respect for you, and I appreciate all you've done for the department over the years. Play to his ego, and maybe we can have a productive meeting. But I'm not optimistic.
G: I'm delighted to hear that. So far so good?
S: Why don't we start with your thoughts on how you've been doing? Let's ease in, and see if he's realistic about his performance.
G: Perhaps I'm being a bit immodest, but I think even you are aware that I've been a stalwart, and, really, a star in this department. I've played a major role over the years in building the image of our department and the school. Why did I ask? I should have known the answer. But we have to face facts.
Try to be as gentle as possible, but tell him the truth.

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