Multi-framing as a tool in top management teams

This chapter explores the collective process of management in an analysis of an audio–video recorded half-hour episode at a management team meeting at a multinational company. Solving problems while building team spirit among members with different competences requires the application of multiple frames of experience. Complexity stems from ‘objective’ conditions as well as from the multidimensionality of the group’s deliberation. The study uses multiple frames to understand the different implications of a proposal that provides enough sense for group members to support it, despite their different functions and experiences. However, the risk of team disintegration is intrinsic in a situation when the group tries to reconcile its members’ different views. Membership work is required. Although membership work is to some extent an epiphenomenon, an unintended side effect of the process of management, it holds the multi-framing process intact.