Frameworks: Shortcuts that Waste Your Time

note: My lens in writing this is specific to frameworks in the context of go-to-market for businesses, and especially start-ups.

I tend to think that frameworks are useless.

We tend to put things into framework instead of just thinking about the right thing to do that makes sense.

Generalising the Un-generalisable

Frameworks are useful structures to shortcut thinking, but that is precisely where they go wrong.

We overfit our thought process to frameworks that constrain the variables of our thinking and limit the possible outcomes rather than expanding them.

Shortcutting thinking in a creative or strategic context is particularly harmful. You do not want to shortcut thinking when making important decisions, ideating, or when designing process, strategy, or other.

The task of identifying, choosing, and agreeing on the right framework takes us away from much simpler questions that prompt first principles thinking: “How do I get from A to B?” “What should I do now?” “What matters most?”…

We rely on frameworks to define our process not always because they are exactly what we need, but because they provide us with an illusory external validation that our reasoning is structured correctly and right. We perceive them as models that will give us the output we are looking for simply by inputting our variables into them.

We have been programmed in school to think there is a right answer to everything, and right way to do things, but that is not true. It’s an infinite multiple choice that you go through with your own methodology, and you are responsible for your own grading.

Frameworks are taught in management books written by MBAs (or similar) who love putting practice into theory. Frameworks are generalised extrapolations that are based on approximations of what works and has worked in the past.

Frameworks are generalisations, but no framework is generalisable.

It is trying to apply something generic to something specific.

The problem is that if there is one constant in remarkable success, it is precisely that it is remarkable. And for it to be remarkable, it must be unique, and hence the approach is differentiated — and most often, unprecedented.

An unprecedented process requires an unprecedented framework.

You have a unique product, market, vision, talent, etc, and no framework can possibly encapsulate all of your unique variables, and tell you how to structure your approach to what you are trying to achieve.

Creating Your Own Frameworks

The lack of frameworks is actually a good thing: it forces you to think in your own way.

It is not about finding or following a framework that works, but about creating your own.

Useful frameworks are derived from your thought process, rather than the other way around (deriving thought process from framework). It is a useful organisation of the way you think, to justify your reasoning, or to share with others in an organisation with common principles and goals.

It is useful to see how one thinks, but not how you should think.

Frameworks can be useful to extract questions from them, but not as a pre-set process.

Processes constantly change, and frameworks are static.

Time wasted creating and adopting frameworks is too precious, too scarce to be allocated to this.

A Better Way to Shortcut Thinking

The best way to shortcut thinking is not with frameworks, but principles.

Know what your goals are, where you are going, what you value, etc. and these will define the principles that will inform all of your decision making and thought process.

Instead of asking for frameworks to use as your playbook, define your principles — they will become your playbook.

That is what “first principles thinking” can be.