{"id":10569,"date":"2026-05-04T15:18:57","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T15:18:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/the-decision-frame-thats-costing-you-more-than-you-think-ir-global\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T15:18:57","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T15:18:57","slug":"the-decision-frame-thats-costing-you-more-than-you-think-ir-global","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/the-decision-frame-thats-costing-you-more-than-you-think-ir-global\/","title":{"rendered":"The Decision Frame That\u2019s Costing You More Than You Think | IR Global"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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[author: <\/em>John R. Kormanik<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>] <\/em><\/p>\n

Inspired by my Kenyan safari, \u201cField Notes\u201d are my observations from the field where my clients and I work \u2014 coaching sessions. Each field note is drawn from actual client sessions and gives insight into the personal evolution of my clients.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Location:<\/span><\/span> A Law Firm Founder\u2019s Office, Southern California.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Observation:<\/span><\/span> The frame you bring to a decision determines the quality of the decision. Every time.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

It was a dense week. He\u2019d let someone go. A major client had called to restructure the relationship. A key associate had been spotted interviewing elsewhere. Any one of those events would have been enough to send most founders into a tailspin.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

He wasn\u2019t in a tailspin. But he wasn\u2019t fully steady either.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

And the first thing that told me everything I needed to know? The word he used to describe the deadline he\u2019d set for himself on the termination decision.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

He called it a \u201cmade up\u201d date.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

1. Your Words Reveal Your Frame<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

He had not made up that date. He had set it thoughtfully, based on conversations with employment-law counsel, with his partner, with me. He\u2019d given the situation a defined runway, observed what happened, and acted when it was clear things hadn\u2019t changed.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s not arbitrary. That\u2019s a decision architecture.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

But calling it \u201cmade up\u201d sent him quietly, almost invisibly into a catabolic frame. <\/span><\/span>It\u2019s just this thing. I don\u2019t really need to stick with it.<\/span><\/span> The word stripped the decision of its own legitimacy before he\u2019d even made it.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Words are not decoration. They are data about the energy state underneath them. And the energy state underneath the decision shapes the decision itself.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

He caught it the moment I named it. That\u2019s the work.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

2. The Cost He Didn\u2019t Calculate.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

He felt guilt the next morning. He\u2019d walk past the empty office and feel it. Not because he\u2019d made the wrong call; he knew he hadn\u2019t. Because he was telling himself a story: <\/span><\/span>I failed. In the hire. In the development. In the management.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

That story is understandable. It is also not true.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what actually happened: he owned his 100%, sought input from the right people, gave the situation a fair runway, and made a hard call cleanly. That\u2019s not failure. That\u2019s leadership.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The guilt wasn\u2019t evidence of a mistake. It was evidence of a story he was choosing. Choices can be changed.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

What founders rarely do is calculate the cost of the story itself. The cost, or psychological tax, compounds every time you revisit a settled decision from a frame of self-indictment. It costs you energy. It costs you presence. It costs you the mental bandwidth you need for the decisions that are actually in front of you.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Journal it. Do the after-action review; honestly evaluate your performance. Then close the file.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

3. When the Security Blanket Goes Away<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The client relationship restructure landed hard. Not because it was catastrophic \u2014 it wasn\u2019t \u2014 but because it had represented a predictable revenue floor. Comfortable. Reliable. The kind of relationship that lets you stop thinking about business development for whole stretches of time.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

His instinct was sharp: <\/span><\/span>maybe that\u2019s a good thing<\/span><\/span>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

It is. But that instinct needs architecture behind it to stay anabolic when the pressure is on.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the frame I gave him: you are not selling. You are the buyer. You offer premium work at a rate that reflects it. The relationship either becomes a win-win at that standard, or it doesn\u2019t continue. Either outcome is acceptable. Neither requires desperation.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s not arrogance. That\u2019s a CEO operating from a clearly defined value position.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The lawyer version of that conversation sounds like: <\/span><\/span>what do I have to do to keep this<\/span><\/span>? The CEO version sounds like: <\/span><\/span>here\u2019s who we are and what we deliver. You can come along or not<\/span><\/span>.*<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The difference in those two frames is not small.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The Bottom Line<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Cognitive and behavioral architecture is not a soft skill. It is the infrastructure underneath every decision you make about people, clients, revenue, and growth. When the frame is wrong, even a good strategy underperforms. When the frame is right, even a hard week becomes useful data.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The founder who can diagnose the frame he\u2019s operating from (and shift it deliberately) is already thinking like a CEO.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Field Exercise<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

In the last 30 days, identify one decision you made and ask:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

1. What word or phrase did I use to describe the constraints around that decision, and what did that language signal about how I actually viewed it?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

2. What story did I tell myself in the aftermath? Was it accurate or was it a frame I chose without realizing I was choosing?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

3. Where am I currently operating from a \u201cwhat do I have to do to keep this?\u201d posture and what would the buyer\u2019s frame look like instead?<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The quality of your decisions is downstream of the quality of your thinking. Upgrade the thinking first.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

End of dispatch.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[author: John R. Kormanik] Inspired by my Kenyan safari, \u201cField Notes\u201d are my observations from the field where my clients and I work \u2014 coaching sessions. Each field […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10570,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7889,1521,7888,1043],"class_list":["post-10569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-costing","tag-decision","tag-frame","tag-global"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10569\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}