Insight Cultural intelligence
Before correcting a behaviour, you need to know what you are looking at
What we observe is a fact. The meaning we give it is already a hypothesis. Between the two, an operation took place so fast that it does not present itself as an operation.
THE SITUATION
A behaviour is a problem, and the cause already seems known.
Someone does not follow the expected procedure. Another never asks a question in meetings. A third reacts to a remark in a surprising way. In each of these cases, a manager has a fact — something happened — and an explanation that arrived on its own.
The explanation is rarely absurd. It rests on experience, on the habits of the trade, on what has been seen elsewhere. It simply arrived before any verification, and it now occupies the place of the fact.
Correcting a behaviour means knowing what you are correcting.
FOUR LEVELS PEOPLE CONFLATE
Observation, interpretation, hypothesis, verification.
Observation is what would have been visible or audible to any other person present. It is stated without qualifiers: the person did not answer for several seconds; the report was submitted without the requested section; the question was asked after the meeting rather than during it.
Interpretation is the meaning we attach to it. It already contains words like disengagement, resistance, lack of rigour or discomfort. None of those words was observed: they were produced.
A hypothesis is that same interpretation, but recognized for what it is: one possible reading, held alongside other equally plausible ones. The change is small and it changes everything, because a hypothesis calls for verification whereas a conclusion calls for action.
Verification is what makes it possible to decide: a question asked, information requested, an additional observation, feedback sought.
What did you actually observe, before saying what it means?
WHAT THE DISTINCTION CHANGES
A correction based on a hypothesis sometimes corrects something else.
When an interpretation becomes the basis for an intervention, the conversation that follows is no longer about the situation: it is about the reading that was made of it. The person concerned defends themselves against an intention they may not have had, and the manager observes a resistance that seems to confirm their initial reading.
The correction often remains necessary. What changes is its object. You correct an observed gap rather than an assumed intention, and the conversation becomes debatable again, and therefore useful.
The first reading is not wrong because it is first. It is simply not yet verified.
This text goes deeper into one dimension of our expertise The full mechanism, the demonstration that makes it visible and the possible forms of engagement are set out on the expertise page.
Cultural intelligenceCONTINUE
Other insights on cultural intelligence.
- Insight Silence does not always mean what you think A few seconds of silence can trigger a conclusion.
- Insight An instruction can be clear to the person giving it and ambiguous to the person receiving it An instruction can be perfectly phrased and still produce several readings.
- Insight Not everything is cultural Looking for a cultural explanation too early can keep you from seeing the real problem.
- Insight Adapting without lowering the bar The objective can stay exactly the same while the way you bring someone to it changes.