Flashcard: The Symbolic Frame
Which stories you need to tell
If you are a creative or work with creatives, you probably know, intuitively, that creatives need a different approach to management and leadership than other groups. Since my coaching practice focuses on creatives, I think about this quite a bit.
One of the things I’ve found is that creatives love stories. And there’s a reason for that. It’s because most creative organizations are part of something called the Symbolic Frame.
A book called “Reframing Organizations” by Bolman and Deal, outlines four types of organizations. Each type has what they call a Frame, “a mental model – a set of ideas and assumptions - that you carry in your head to help you understand and negotiate a particular ‘territory’”[1].
The four frames are the Structural, Human Resources, Political and Symbolic. Creatives work in the Symbolic frame. It’s an approach that is comfortable with ambiguity, and uses culture to effect change. We like myths, stories, vision, values, heroes, quests. We laugh at ourselves, but understand the importance of ritual.
The Structural frame works for organizations like the military. Rules and policies are key areas of focus, and the goal is to build a structure that can get the job done.
The Human Resource frame centers relationships, and wants to align the organizational and human needs.
The Political frame is about power, conflict, competition and internal politics. It’s about developing a coherent agenda and power base. If you’ve seen the shows Succession or Industry, those are both in the Political frame.
The Symbolic frame focuses on culture and meaning, or making meaning. Beauty is important, as is purpose and some kind of faith in something. Stories are central to the Symbolic frame. My clients appreciate story more than system. They want to hear the origin story of organizations. They love heroes and mythic quests, villains and vanquishers, they dote on metaphor and analogy.
If you want to attract and keep creatives who flourish in the Symbolic frame, pay attention to your stories and cultural rituals around these key areas:
1. Your origin story. Why did you start? Why does your company have the name it has? Think of all the stories about how tech companies started in someone’s garage. We love origin stories. When I went to Leo Burnett, they used to have a bowl of apples in reception, because the man Leo Burnett who started the company kept a bowl of apples in the office that he started during the Depression, and the tradition continued.
2. What’s the quest? A good story has a villain and a hero and hard work. New business is great for this since pitches often require Herculean labors. At one agency where I led new business, we had a gimmick of driving a vintage RV to pitches. Once, we pulled up to the client’s place of business and all of us started unloading the material we needed for the pitch – from the CEO to the junior new business person, we all lugged our supplies out of the RV. Down the long driveway came our competition, a very famous agency. Their pitch team was being driven in a limo, by a chauffeur wearing an actual chauffeur’s cap. The famous white guys who ran the agency got out, leaving the lone, junior new business woman struggling to balance all the equipment.
3. How do you celebrate wins? Forced rituals, like ringing a bell for a win, can land badly. But organic rituals around wins, or losses, can really connect people.
4. How do you help people? Many of us had bad experiences around how we were treated by our jobs when we were sick, or someone in our family was hurt. The stories of women getting no maternity leave, or closing business while in labor don’t go over well. But the stories of companies that helped someone who was ill or injured above and beyond get around. I’ve heard people compare parental leave benefits with their friends in the way another generation might have compared vacation policies; how you treat new parents speaks volumes.
5. Who are you for? Is there a name or a story around your people? Again, this needs to be organic and authentic, it can’t be something a marketing person makes up. But whether it’s The Island of Misfit Toys or Pirates or some play on the name of the company, names, stories, symbols and rituals about who works here and why they’re different can be great.
6. Be mindful of your physical space, if you still have one, as it can be the most potent expression of symbol. There’s an agency called Catalysis and their office is in a church. Not only is it in a decommissioned church, with the stained-glass windows still intact, I heard a story that the church one of the first churches in Seattle to welcome gay and lesbian parishioners. In fact, I was told that the reason Capitol Hill, a traditionally gay neighborhood, is located where it is, is because of where the church sits. People moved near the church that welcomed them.
It almost doesn’t matter if this is true. What matters is that this is a great story for a beautiful space, and like catnip to people like me who are all about the Symbolic frame.
I like the Symbolic frame, but any system that resonates with you can remind you of this key fact: organizations, like people, can vary significantly in what motivates them and how they work and respond to change. If you know this, you can be attuned to what frame you like best. And you can see if the frame you prefer aligns with the organization where you work.
For example, if you have spent most of your career in an organization that is all about Human Resources, and meeting the needs of the people that work there, you’re going to be used to a decision-making process that pays lots of attention to how people feel, a process that strives to make everyone feel included in a decision.
If you then move to a job that operates on a Political frame, you’re going to have some sharp adjustments when decision making is more hierarchical, and the leaders are more interested in increasing their power base than making people feel good about working there.
If you’re trying to get an organization to change, innovate or transform, you’ll want to use different approaches depending on the frame[2]. For example, how do you get people engaged and motivated to start a change process? In the Structural frame you don’t need to – just give them a plan. For the Human Resource frame you’d ask for input from people throughout the organization. In the Political frame, you’d network with the player with the biggest power base. For the Symbolic frame? Get them motivated by telling them a story. The bigger, bolder and more heroic, the better.
[1] Reframing Organizations; Artistry, Choice and Leadership. Bolman and Deal, Fourth Edition, p. 11
[2] Bolman and Deal p. 395