How you frame it determines how free you are to act.
In an art gallery, the frame makes a big difference to how the picture appears. For example, if it’s a gold leaf frame, gold types of colours will seem to pop. If it’s a dark wood frame, or a painted frame, it will again emphasise different colours. Curators know that how you frame the picture determines what you see as salient and very can much influence the mood.
You can frame the current issues in the Strait of Hormuz in a lot of different ways. For example:
- Think of it as a ‘Geopolitics’ problem. For most people, this is too general a frame (as in an Armchair General who opines without influence).
- Or as an ‘Uncertainty propagating through the system’ problem. You’ll hear the talking heads on CNBC and Bloomberg talking about this: Energy prices, inflation expectations, central bank machinations, wobbling markets.
- And for many people in real businesses, a ‘Cost problem’.
But I can be better to think about it as a ‘Room to Manoeuvre’ problem.
There are three ways organisations tend to respond under this kind of pressure, and they are influenced by the way they frame things.
1. FRAME: Cost Problem → RESPONSE: Optimise even more.
When you think about it as a pure cost problem, the temptation is just to cut expenses, trim your plans, and drive efficiencies. While this looks disciplined, it often reduces your room to manoeuvre. Too little slack in a system can mean becoming absolutely gridlocked.
Think of Blockbuster. They doubled down on store economics and late fees while ignoring the bountiful opportunity (or existential threat) of Netflix-style streaming.
2. FRAME: Uncertainty Problem → RESPONSE: Wait for clarity.
If you see the problem as an uncertainty problem, then it feels natural to defer decisions, hold back, and see how things play out. While that might feel prudent, it often loses momentum to braver, more decisive, or clearer thinking competitors. The world isn’t necessarily waiting for you to get clarity.
Take Google and Microsoft in the recent AI wave: Google actually developed the Transformer architecture that drives almost all AI models but moved cautiously, while Microsoft acted early – partnering with OpenAI and quickly integrating features into its products. It wasn’t better information or brain-power; it was a willingness to act with prudent risk before the picture was clear. Absent that willingness, Google was playing catch up.
3. FRAME: ‘Room to Manoeuvre’ Problem → RESPONSE: Reframe.
If you see the current situation as a constraint on your room to manoeuvre, it sets you off thinking in better directions: can you be more creative with pricing and the way you understand value? Can you do new things with what you’ve got already? Can you make manageable bets and adopt reversible decisions? It can seem less tidy but is often more effective.
During COVID for example, Amazon rapidly reallocated capacity, expanded logistics, and built on what was already working – gaining share while others were still trying to stabilise.
So which of these three courses should you choose?
Most organisations default to the first two options because they feel rational. But efficiency assumes stability – a tempting but unwarranted assumption. And wait-and-see feels prudent but makes you a passenger, ignoring the costs and risks of inaction. In conditions like this, the advantage shifts to the third option: reframe.
That’s where Start With What Works becomes more than a principle; to becomes a method for increasing degrees of freedom:
- Identify what is already working, especially capability and resource you normally take for granted.
- Repurpose, reconfigure and amplify
- Keep decisions reversible for as long as possible
- Use results to fund and inform adjacent moves
As much as we probably want to forget COVID, let’s not forget its lessons. We can reframe it as a valuable source of insights. One insight that pops out: During that time, the organisations that did best didn’t have better forecasts. They had better ways of moving with incomplete information.
No one knows when the Strait of Hormuz will be safe again. Maybe it will never return to what it was. Now’s the time to think about building room to manoeuvre whatever happens.
© Andy Bass 2026