Every situation can be told at least two ways. The one you choose changes everything.
From memory
Think of a time when someone — a colleague, a leader, a politician — took a situation that looked bad and made it sound good. Or vice versa. What did they do? How did it work?
Consider these two sentences. Same facts. Different frame:
Neither is a lie. Both are factually accurate. But they tell completely different stories — and lead to completely different conversations in the room. That's the power of reframing.
Four moves. Each one shifts the story without changing the facts.
Zoom out or zoom in. A bad quarter looks different inside a three-year growth curve. A difficult day looks different as "the turning point."
"Compared to what?" changes everything. Compared to your target, you failed. Compared to the industry average, you're top quartile. Compared to where you started, it's extraordinary.
Whose story is this? The company's? The customer's? The team's? Shifting the protagonist shifts what matters. A product failure from the company's perspective is a customer insight from the product team's perspective.
Is this a failure story or a learning story? A cost or an investment? A setback or a pivot? The category you assign determines the emotional and strategic weight of every fact inside it.
Here's a fact: "The product launch attracted only 200 users in the first month — against a target of 2,000."
"Month one gave us 200 users. But those 200 generated the feedback that reshaped the product entirely — and by month six we had 8,000."
"Our closest competitor's launch? 45 users. We opened with 200 — and unlike them, every one of those users was acquired organically."
"200 people chose to try something completely new. They gave us 1,400 pieces of feedback in 30 days. They built this product as much as we did."
"We didn't launch a product — we launched a learning experiment. And the data from those 200 users was worth more than any market research we could have bought."
Take each scenario. Reframe it using a specific rung of the ladder.
"Three of our top five engineers left in Q2."
Try reframing this using Rung 4 (Change the Category). What category shift would change the story? Discuss it, then write your version.
"The departures forced us to do something we'd been avoiding for two years: build a leadership pipeline instead of depending on heroes. Six months later, we're a more resilient team than we've ever been." — The category shifts from loss to catalyst.
For each one, choose which rung of the ladder you'll use, then reframe. Say your reframe out loud first, then write it.
"The project came in 40% over budget."
Which rung? Why?
"We're the smallest player in a market dominated by three giants."
Which rung? Why?
"Customer satisfaction dropped from 87% to 71% this quarter."
Which rung? Why?
"I was fired from my last role after 18 months."
Which rung? Why?
Reframe something real from your professional life.
Think of a situation in your work — current or recent — where the story being told (by you, your team, your company) is negative, defensive, or flat. Something that's usually framed as a problem, a failure, or a weakness.
The current frame
Your reframe (pick a rung and apply it)
Now deliver the reframe out loud
As if you're in the meeting where this conversation usually happens. Make it convincing.
Take the same situation and reframe it again using a different rung. How does the story change? Which version is more effective for your context?
The line between reframing and spin. Where is it?
Reframing is powerful precisely because it can change how people feel about the same facts. That's also what makes it dangerous. Consider these three scenarios:
A pharmaceutical company reframes the side effects of a drug as "manageable trade-offs for significant quality-of-life improvements" — when internal data shows the side effects are more severe than publicly disclosed.
A CEO reframes mass layoffs as "reshaping for the future" — and genuinely believes the restructuring will save the remaining 80% of jobs and create better ones within two years.
A leader reframes their team's failure to hit targets as "ambitious goal-setting that drove unprecedented effort" — knowing the team already feels the same pressure is unsustainable.
For each: is this legitimate reframing or spin? Where's the line? Discuss each one — there are no simple answers.
Here's a principle to carry with you: A reframe is honest when it adds a perspective the listener genuinely needs. It's spin when it removes a perspective the listener deserves.
In your own words — and applying this to something from your professional context — explain when reframing crosses the line. Speak for about a minute.
From Lessons 2 and 3 — from memory only.
Lesson 2: Origin Story
1. Name all five steps of the Defining Moment method.
Lesson 3: The Logline
2. What are the four elements of the logline formula?
3. Could you use a reframe to change the "but" in a logline? Give an example.
1. The World Before → The Crack → The Struggle → The Becoming → The Gift.
2. Somebody + wants something + but something's in the way + so they must act.
3. Absolutely. The "but" is where the reframe lives. "Our team wants to scale, but we lost key engineers" becomes "Our team wants to scale, but our old structure depended on heroes instead of systems" — same facts, completely different implied solution.
From memory. No peeking.
1. Name the four rungs of the Reframing Ladder
2. What's the difference between reframing and spin?
3. Which rung do you think is most powerful in your professional context? Why?
1. Change the Timeframe. Change the Comparison. Change the Protagonist. Change the Category.
2. A reframe adds a perspective the listener genuinely needs. Spin removes a perspective the listener deserves. Both change the story — but one serves the truth and the other hides it.
3. Personal reflection — no single right answer. The point is being able to articulate why a particular rung suits your context.
Where in your professional life is there a story currently being told that would benefit from a reframe? What rung would you use?
How confident are you with that statement right now?
1 = not yet | 5 = absolutely
Next time: Numbers That Breathe — making data memorable by wrapping it in story.