This example was in an interesting HBR article about how to change the way you look at a problem.

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Imagine this: You are the owner of an office building, and your tenants are complaining about the elevator. It’s old and slow, and they have to wait a lot. Several tenants are threatening to break their leases if you don’t fix the problem.

When asked, most people quickly identify some solutions: replace the lift, install a stronger motor, or perhaps upgrade the algorithm that runs the lift. These suggestions fall into what I call a solution space: a cluster of solutions that share assumptions about what the problem is—in this case, that the elevator is slow. This framing is illustrated below.

However, when the problem is presented to building managers, they suggest a much more elegant solution: Put up mirrors next to the elevator. This simple measure has proved wonderfully effective in reducing complaints, because people tend to lose track of time when given something utterly fascinating to look at, namely, themselves.

The mirror solution is particularly interesting because in fact it is not a solution to the stated problem: It doesn’t make the elevator faster. Instead it proposes a different understanding of the problem.

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Recently, I made the mistake of failing to take advantage of an opportunity to reframe a situation. Even though the problem seems evident, it’s a mistake to skip this stage since we miss the opportunity to reframe the problem.

That implies we’re missing out on many potential solutions, such as putting up mirrors next to the elevator. Nothing less would ever cross our minds.