Replace Blame With Curiosity
- Difficulty
- Starter
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 6
- Confidence
- —
A reframe Partaker applies to anomalous business data. The instinctive reaction to a bad number is an accusatory question — why isn't this happening, why is this so high. That framing implies fault and produces defensiveness rather than movement. The substitution is to greet the same number with interest: that's interesting, that feels like a lot, that feels like an opportunity. The reframe is not merely emotional hygiene; it changes what you do next, because an opportunity gets an X-to-Y target and a sprint slot while a fault gets an explanation. Partaker pairs it with an explicit tolerance for un-actioned opportunities — he described hundreds of people a day taking assessments on his own site whose data he was not fully acting on, and treated that as opportunity rather than failure.
Origin
Extracted from Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal
How to run it
- 1
Catch the accusatory framing
Notice when your reaction to a number is 'why isn't this happening' or 'why is this so bizarre'. That is the framing to intercept.
- 2
Substitute an interested observation
Restate the same fact neutrally with interest attached: 300 customer success inquiries a week feels like a lot, that's interesting.
Pro tip The phrase 'oh, that's interesting' is doing real work — it buys a beat before judgment.
- 3
Name it as an opportunity
Convert the observation into an opportunity statement. A 0.6% conversion rate against an industry average of at least 1% is free money on the table, not a failure.
- 4
Attach an X-to-Y target
Give the opportunity a measurable movement — reduce weekly inquiries from 300 to 50 — plus a hypothesis about why that is good for the business.
Watch out Without a target the reframe stays a mood and never reaches a sprint.
- 5
Route it into a sprint and take the quick wins
Put the opportunity into the sprint system with a concrete investigation path, and go for the quick wins first as familiarity develops.
Pro tip Improvements compound: fewer support inquiries produce better retention and better word of mouth, not just lower cost.
- 6
Accept the un-actioned backlog
Tolerate the opportunities you can see but are not acting on yet. Recognise them, note that there is opportunity there, and let the sprint system get to them.
In the wild
Ali flagged around 300 customer support emails arriving each week as bizarre, and noted that he asked questions like this while others on the team did not. Partaker reframed it in place: instead of asking why this is happening, say that's interesting, 300 inquiries feels like a lot, that feels like an opportunity. He then walked the opportunity into an X-to-Y target of 300 down to 50 weekly inquiries, with an investigation path — categorise inquiry types, check them against the FAQ, assess whether the self-serve is good enough, and consider an AI chatbot to absorb around 80%.
→ Partaker noted the improvement would compound beyond cost, driving better retention and word of mouth, and therefore sales.
Partaker turned the lens on himself. Hundreds of people per day take the assessments on his site, and he had recently looked at that data and realised it was going straight into an email list and nothing more. He identified a specific missed signal: a CEO reporting a $30 million recurring revenue business who scores low on the assessment is exactly the person he should be notified about and jump on. He attributed the gap to the business going well enough to create overflow — and declined to treat it as a failure.
→ He filed it as recognised opportunity rather than a problem: 'I'm just like ah there's opportunity there.'
Common mistakes
Asking why before asking what
The why-isn't-this-happening framing seeks a cause and, implicitly, a culpable party. It generates explanation rather than experiment, and in a team setting it teaches people not to surface anomalies.
Reframing without a target
Calling something an opportunity and leaving it there changes nothing. Partaker immediately attached an X-to-Y number and a hypothesis, then said explicitly that this stuff should go into the sprints.
Treating every visible opportunity as urgent
Partaker's own unworked assessment data shows the discipline: seeing an opportunity you are not acting on is normal when the business is going well, and does not warrant self-criticism or an immediate scramble.
From the transcript
“replace replace blame with curiosity right so it's like instead of why isn't this happening be like oh that's interesting 300 customer success you know…”
“we're going to focus on reducing customer success you know what's our X to Y we want weekly inquiries our hypothesis is that we get…”
“I recognize these data opportunities as well these metrics that exist that I'm not really acting on fully yet but it's okay I'm just like…”
From the episode
A Brutally Honest Conversation With My CEO Coach - Eric Partaker
Eric Partaker