Social Lens Framework

My proprietary Social Lens Framework first emerged via my work with Insight Labs, an organization that facilitated high-stakes strategic conversations about social change in partnership with dozens of organizations.

Together we identified patterns in how these gatherings reached their most impactful conclusions, eventually refining our learnings into a teaching methodology in cooperation with faculty at the University of Southern California. Having personally taught thousands of people using these methods, I adapted my own framework appropriate for executive coaching using the following six lenses.

• Actors: The people and organizations tied to a problem as well as their various relationships and motivations

• Limits: Formal rules and constraints that shape the world of the problem as well as how people react to them

• History: The many stories people tell about the past of the problem and how they influence their behavior today

• Future: People’s expectations about where the problem is headed and the assumptions they make in the present as a result

• Configuration: Mental categories people construct around the problem (often manifested in specialized vocabulary) and how those categories fit together

• Parthood: The context of the problem, especially the ways in which it relates to other problems people and organizations are trying to solve

Design for Decision-Making

If you have reached the executive level of your organization, you’re probably really good at linear problems: issues that can be solved using the same rational methods over and over again. But as a leader, you are forced to take action on complex issues that resist rational analysis. You may have much less information than you would like, or no way to easily manage risk. And it feels like every time you try to do anything, the problem changes.

These are nonlinear problems. They include issues tied to people, organizations, and social impact. Properly understood, design thinking can help you respond to these situations without feeling paralyzed. I’ll select the exercises you need to make decisions confidently.