Week 4 - Post 4: Reading - Reframing

What I liked best about this reading was the idea of reframing an event. In Zander's story about the misbehaving teenaged orchestra members, their behavior could have easily been framed as "these teenagers misbehaved and made the orchestra look bad." In that case the trip would be defined as one where some of the participants ruined things for everyone and those teenagers would be defined as people who misbehave on group outings. Both these outcomes take away from the overall benefits of the trip and may have shaded how those particular teenagers were viewed in the orchestra from that point onward.

Instead Zander reframed the event in a more positive way: there were individuals who were elated at their performance and just happened to get carried away because they were still so excited from earlier that night. He gave the individuals a second chance and he kept the event from weighing down the group. Had he verbally reprimanded the teenagers who misbehaved they likely wouldn't have misbehaved again, but the group morale would have severely dropped. Instead he gave everyone the chance to not only brush off the event, but also to focus on what good they could do during the rest of their trip.

When terrible or disappointing things happen to or around us it's important to try to reframe the event in the most productive way. That's not to say you should always put a Pollyanna-type spin on everything and sweep negative thoughts or feelings under the carpet, it's more to say that you try and view things in a way that allows you to move forward positively after the fact.

For example, back in 2008 I left a job where I was paid well and respected by my bosses but wasn't doing something I loved (I was working as an executive assistant) and moved to a job where I was going to be paid terribly but was doing something I was passionate about: teaching (that's my old classroom there on the right). I was quite excited about the opportunity, but it turned out to be a massive bust. As I've complained in class before, the school I worked for was a private institution that cared only about making a profit and truly didn't have the students' or the teachers' best interests in mind. I became so run down and put out by the situation that I quit my job after only 11 months even though I didn't have another job lined up.

I could have looked at that experience as a massive mistake. I left a good job at a company that really cared about doing their job well and moved to a horrific company that didn't care at all about doing a good job. I could have seen this as a terrible error and let that mistake haunt me... except I don't. I learned so much in that job about teaching adults, what I didn't want in a future job, and how I still really wanted to follow my passion for teaching; just not there. I think it was an important experience for me, even though it was also a pretty painful one as well. I was able to frame the experience in a way where I actually don't regret making that decision, even if it turned out to be a bad place for me to work in the end.