My transcriptionist lived in New Orleans until August 28, 2005, the day before Hurricane Katrina hit. She and her boyfriend and their four cats evacuated with two cars full of valuables and art and 'irreplaceables'. They rode out the storm in Tennessee in a pet friendly hotel.
Eight weeks later they arrived in Portland after having gone back to New Orleans to pack up their belongings. For many months after they moved the reaction, when people would find out where they were from, was, 'Wow, you're a Katrina victim?' Her response was always patient. 'We weren't really victims, like the people who couldn't afford to leave, like the people who suffered in the aftermath. We had two cars, credit cards, cash and family support. We were inconvenienced, but hardly victims.'
On an even more positive note, she says, 'This was a great move for me, a new life, new city, and I'm very happy for the change.'
She has anger and sadness for the city and the loss of friends, but has turned the upheaval into a new beginning.
Framing is a powerful tool for positive change. It can be an unbelievably potent instrument for persuasion. Look at the frame that we now put on the Holocaust "victims": Survivors.
Framing is used every day by social workers who work with gang members, using reframing to show how murder is ugly no matter who the victim is.
The world of advertising relies entirely on framing. Appealing to different segments of the population, ad campaigns are tailored to youth markets, middle aged markets, senior markets, religious markets, etc. Advertisers take on the rebel and independent attitudes of youth culture to sell their products using edgy slogans and cool ads.
Although politicians use framing to put their own spin on issues, who's to say they're wrong? Although I don't understand it, for some reason Bush believes that the war in Iraq is just. He uses framing in every speech he makes, and was successful in 2004 when he convinced more than half of the nation that his view was right. He used 9-11 to frame us into believing that we're all in imminent danger and that "It's better to fight them over there, than to fight them over here." This also presupposes we'd have to fight them over here.
The Democrats and an overwhelming percentage of U.S. citizens now have the frame that the war in Iraq has nothing to do with terrorism, but has everything to do with oil and no bid contracts.
Framing can be used to convince people in positive ways. Martin Luther King, Jr. framed segregation as an evil injustice changing the views of many people. Generations later, black and white students don't know the blatant inequality as they've grown up in fully integrated schools.
Frame a hardship into a challenge,. Frame a setback into a time for reflection. Frame a victim into a survivor. Frame an old-fashioned product or service into something cutting edge and indispensable and awesome. Frame everything!
Kenrick Cleveland teaches techniques to earn the business of affluent clients using persuasion. He runs public and private seminars and offers home study courses and coaching programs in persuasion techniques.
Please Rate this Article
Click the XML Icon Above to Receive Coaching Articles Via RSS!
