Framing the pig

In their great problem solving book (pig wrestling) the authors talk about how framing the problem is very important.

Say for example you run a magazine and the sales have steadily fallen in the last 3 months, you might frame this as a sales issue.

So you hold a ‘spot the difference’ meeting where you and your team try and identify why January did so much better than February and March.

And one of the things you identify is that there was more nudity on the cover of the magazine in January than the following months.

So you add more nudity into April’s issue and low and behold sales increase.

Thereby justifying your decision to add even more nudity into May.

And before you know it you have a porn magazine!

So while you solved the sales problem you also ventured so far from your brand identity and integrity chasing revenue.

So it’s very important that you frame the problem correctly because that prevents misguided solutions.