How Great Leaders Think: The Art of Reframing

Chapter 4Leading People

NPR host Adam Davidson and his wife went furniture shopping in 2008 at the Ikea hyperstore in Brooklyn, New York. They hated it. It was an enormous, confusing labyrinth, and they couldn’t get any help finding their way around. Angry and frustrated, they vowed never to return. Five years later, the couple relented and gave Ikea a second chance. They were startled at the difference: help was readily available from pleasant, knowledgeable staff. What happened? Ikea had reframed by adopting a new approach to managing people.

Much of the business world views frontline workers as a necessary evil, a cost to be minimized by keeping head count and wages as low as possible. But retailers such as Costco, Trader Joe’s, Wegman’s, ...