The Optics Framework — when should you let your talking do the work?
As you push on with your career, how well you do depends on the awareness you create around your impact. To what extent you need to do this depends on the balance between perception and reality at your workplace. Few realize this.
Most see themselves as thinkers or doers. The thinkers have the big ideas but find it hard to turn them into business. The doers know how to get things done if given a clear strategy. But they’re unlikely to come up with a good one themselves.
While most are in strife between their thinker and doer selves, they forget about optics. Optics is something Shreyas Doshi considers an altogether separate level of work. I can add that it is especially so in a cross-functional role. So what’s the optics threshold at your workplace?
My Optics Framework for Knowledge Workers may just help you here.
Consider a 2X2 matrix where:
👉the X-axis maps distance from reality. From left to right, you move closer to reality
👉the Y-axis maps distance from reward. From bottom to top, you move closer to reward
In a firm where perceived outcomes carry more weight than actual ones, executives may turn things around by changing targets, reshuffling teams, spinning a narrative. As Will Larson, CTO of Calm and book author, writes, they end up ‘editing reality’. This is the top left and the bottom right quadrants.
Not all of this is dirty, though still harmful. Some managers can’t distinguish snake oil from the real thing–too generalist, big teams. So they look for the proxy of optics. Some, when pursuing big goals, want to fake it till they make it. But they get stuck in the faking phase.
The remaining space–the top right and bottom left quadrants–has firms that measure themselves against real outcomes. Here, perception < reality. You aren’t asked to rewrite emails for updates given in person or random execs aren’t copied on threads or attention doesn’t vanish after launch.
Optics isn’t a bad thing. It calls upon skills that everyone should learn–tailoring your message to the audience, body language, et cetera. You also should spend extra time on management presentations and respond promptly if your CEO makes a request.
Done well, optics contributes to your brand. Things go awry when you get caught up in a hype cycle and the product (you!) doesn’t match up to the brand.
What you could do differently for more impact often relates to changing how people see you. I’m not suggesting you should give yourself an image makeover, but you should know what’s missing. And then ask if you’re willing to change perception or reality.
The Optics Framework may help you get clarity in conflict.
