In yesterday’s post, I shared the story of how Embrace Infant Warmer was able to reframe the problem of providing more incubators to hospitals, saving the lives of hundreds of thousands of premature babies in rural parts of developing countries.

Today, I’d like to share another reframing example to help you see how this process might apply to your own business challenges.

This example is from Thomas Wedell-Wedellsborg’s 2017 article, “Are You Solving the Right Problems?”

At the time the article was published, the ASPCA estimated that more than 3 million dogs were being placed in shelters every year. Yet only about 1.4 million dogs were being adopted.

Lori Weise, founder of Downtown Dog Rescue in Los Angeles, recognized that the problem of “How can we increase the number of adoptions?” might not be the right issue to focus on.

So she looked at it from a different angle—why are so many people surrendering their dogs to shelters in the first place?

An underlying assumption in the animal rescue and shelter community was that many of these people were “heartlessly discarding their pets as if they were just another consumer good. To prevent dogs from ending up with such ‘bad’ owners, many shelters, despite their chronic overpopulation, require potential adopters to undergo laborious background checks.”

But Weise was able to reframe the issue from a people problem to a poverty problem.

“These families love their dogs as much as we do, but they are also exceptionally poor. We’re talking about people who in some cases aren’t entirely sure how they will feed their kids at the end of the month. So when a new landlord suddenly demands a deposit to house the dog, they simply have no way to get the money. In other cases, the dog needs a $10 rabies shot, but the family has no access to a vet, or may be afraid to approach any kind of authority. Handing over their pet to a shelter is often the last option they believe they have.”

Based on this shift in perspective, Weise launched the shelter intervention program to provide people with the resources they need, helping them keep their pets rather than surrender them for adoption.

In the years prior to the program’s launch in April 2013, Weise’s organization had spent an average of $85 for every pet that it helped. The shelter intervention program brought that down to about $60, while at the same time freeing up shelter space for other animals in need. At the time the article was published, the program had helped close to 5,000 pets and families.

Just like the Embrace Infant Warmer story, this example of reframing highlights the incredible positive impact of exploring a problem more deeply, and asking better questions about its true cause.

In hindsight, helping more pet owners keep their dogs seems like a no brainer. And yet, it took decades for someone to finally break out of status quo thinking about pet adoptions.

What will you do today to apply this story to your own business challenges?

Will you imagine the types of reframing questions that Lori Weise may have asked herself, and how you can use a similar problem-solving approach?