I love frameworks and mental models. I’ve created about twenty-something tools that belong in my intellectual property toolkit.

But I love holistic thinking more, which demands even more non-prescriptive solutions.

The highly prescriptive solutions, with their dozens of frameworks, include E-Myth, EOS, and Scaling Up. No one can dispute the success that companies achieve when they use these tools.

But here’s a truth we’ll never know. What if these same companies had used a non-prescriptive business excellence program (BEP)? Would their results have been stronger and longer-lasting? We’ll never know.

While it might seem like I’m critiquing prescriptive BEPs such as E-Myth, EOS, and Scaling Up, I’m really focused on framework blindness. When small businesses follow rigid programs such as EOS, beware of framework blindness. I bet framework blindness is alive and well in your organization right now.