Evidence is better than Hypothesis
This one is for Benji, who endlessly asks me why I haven't posted since December!
Title is a deliberate wind-up - kind of. Actually there is a serious point, which I will illustrate using the Birkman Method®, the core tool in Elaura's armoury.
People often ask what psychological or even psycho-analytical construct underlies the Birkman. Answer - none. Unlike the plethora of tools which are based around - usually - some form of Jungian analysis, the Birkman is an evidence-based tool. That is to say, Dr Birkman's original research involved asking individuals to describe themselves and others, and then comparing that data with what the people who knew that individual best said about them. Not surprisingly, there was a gap between an individual's self-perception and what those who knew them said; but the gaps themselves had definite structure, which was the first step in developing the Birkman into the powerful tool it is today. This referencing of self-reported information against actual performance has been a feature of all subsequent development of the Birkman as well, and has turned out to have enormous predictive power.
A simple example. There is a Birkman scale called Public Contact. In fact the upper end of the scale is called Public Contact, the lower end Detail. People who come out as strongly oriented towards Public Contact are those who love communicating and interacting with people - including the general public - in ways which mean they have to field questions without notice and think on their feet. Conversely, those who come out strongly orientated towards Detail are those who may still be willing to communicate with the public, but for whom crossing all the "t"s and dotting all the "i"s first is absolutely critical. These are people who are not willing just to wing it.
Bring on two subjects. One is an internationally renowned public speaker; a man who could probably read the Yellow Pages to a crowd and change their lives in the process. The other is part of a senior management team at a local authority, responsible for all their media contact and in particular for selling the authority's story and successes to their constituency.
So what are their Public Contact - Detail scores?
If you answered High Public Contact, Low Detail for either, you have demonstrated exactly why evidence is a better starting point than stereotypical thinking masquerading as hypothesis. In fact, both are Low Public Contact, High Detail. Once you look at the data, it is much easier to arrive at a robust hypothesis. The Media Officer is OF COURSE responsible for thinking through the impact of every minor press release before it goes out; she knows it is no good winning a small cheap victory in one area which then gets the Authority into hot water in another. Likewise, once we know the renowned public speaker has this pattern of scores, we start to notice the way he practices new material and tries it out endlessly on friendly audiences before launching out to the wider public, and how those who travel with him can tell his stories word perfect - BECAUSE HE is WORD PERFECT too. Does he handle questions without notice? Yes - by turning them around into questions for which he is confident of the answers.
It is easy to understand why we would assume that a fluent Public Speaker or an outgoing Media Officer would be someone who was happy to think on their feet; but that isn't hypothesis, it is just a bad guess. Finding out what really makes for specific success is far more interesting - and useful - than just guessing. Or at least, that's my hypothesis...
Title is a deliberate wind-up - kind of. Actually there is a serious point, which I will illustrate using the Birkman Method®, the core tool in Elaura's armoury.
People often ask what psychological or even psycho-analytical construct underlies the Birkman. Answer - none. Unlike the plethora of tools which are based around - usually - some form of Jungian analysis, the Birkman is an evidence-based tool. That is to say, Dr Birkman's original research involved asking individuals to describe themselves and others, and then comparing that data with what the people who knew that individual best said about them. Not surprisingly, there was a gap between an individual's self-perception and what those who knew them said; but the gaps themselves had definite structure, which was the first step in developing the Birkman into the powerful tool it is today. This referencing of self-reported information against actual performance has been a feature of all subsequent development of the Birkman as well, and has turned out to have enormous predictive power.
A simple example. There is a Birkman scale called Public Contact. In fact the upper end of the scale is called Public Contact, the lower end Detail. People who come out as strongly oriented towards Public Contact are those who love communicating and interacting with people - including the general public - in ways which mean they have to field questions without notice and think on their feet. Conversely, those who come out strongly orientated towards Detail are those who may still be willing to communicate with the public, but for whom crossing all the "t"s and dotting all the "i"s first is absolutely critical. These are people who are not willing just to wing it.
Bring on two subjects. One is an internationally renowned public speaker; a man who could probably read the Yellow Pages to a crowd and change their lives in the process. The other is part of a senior management team at a local authority, responsible for all their media contact and in particular for selling the authority's story and successes to their constituency.
So what are their Public Contact - Detail scores?
If you answered High Public Contact, Low Detail for either, you have demonstrated exactly why evidence is a better starting point than stereotypical thinking masquerading as hypothesis. In fact, both are Low Public Contact, High Detail. Once you look at the data, it is much easier to arrive at a robust hypothesis. The Media Officer is OF COURSE responsible for thinking through the impact of every minor press release before it goes out; she knows it is no good winning a small cheap victory in one area which then gets the Authority into hot water in another. Likewise, once we know the renowned public speaker has this pattern of scores, we start to notice the way he practices new material and tries it out endlessly on friendly audiences before launching out to the wider public, and how those who travel with him can tell his stories word perfect - BECAUSE HE is WORD PERFECT too. Does he handle questions without notice? Yes - by turning them around into questions for which he is confident of the answers.
It is easy to understand why we would assume that a fluent Public Speaker or an outgoing Media Officer would be someone who was happy to think on their feet; but that isn't hypothesis, it is just a bad guess. Finding out what really makes for specific success is far more interesting - and useful - than just guessing. Or at least, that's my hypothesis...
