Understanding Signs

Introduction

This article is an introduction to the analysis of signs when they are used with individual characteristics, such as GRI’s adaptive profiles, and any other signs. Signs have long been studied in the science of signs, also called semiotics.

The different modes of existence of a sign, its nine constituent elements, and the 10 combinations of these elements are defined more precisely in this article. This synthesis on signs is directly derived from Charles Pierce's work. Other articles discuss how signs that represent individual characteristics are used for improving individual and organizational performance.

Components of a sign

Every sign represents or exists for something: an “object”. But it does not represent the totality of the object. It refers to a certain idea of ​​the object called its "ground". When the sign is interpreted by someone, that person creates in their mind an equivalent sign, more or less developed, called "interpretant". The sign, therefore, comprises three distinct instances:

• the sign itself,
• the object, and
• the interpretant.

By referring to an object and being able to be interpreted by a person, the sign has a particular or potential reason for existence. The relationship between the three instances is 'authentic', meaning that they are linked by a complex that does not allow dyadic relationships: a sign can only represent an object and say something about it to someone. The sign can be seen as a means by which an object has a meaning in the person (or interpretant). Vice versa, with their interpretant, people create signs to designate objects. The endless process of creating signs is called semiosis.

The three instances each have three modes of existence. They can relate to qualities, facts, or rules. The first mode, qualities, highlights the quality of the sign as potentially carrying a meaning. This meaning can also relate to action. The second mode of existence emphasizes the connection between the sign and the action. The third mode concerns the value of the sign to carry rules that has a utility for others in society or an organization. The three aspects are intertwined. A sign can be understood through three instances: the object, the sign itself, and the interpretant. Additionally, it can exist in three modes: qualities, facts, and rules. By examining these three instances and three modes, signs can be categorized into nine categories. Based on the object, a sign can be a qualisign, sinsign, or legisign; based on the sign itself, it can be an icon, index, or symbol; and based on the interpretant, it can be a rheme, decisign, or argument. The nine categories are shown below.

Since the sign can exist only through a complex of relations between the three instances, it is then necessarily found as covering a qualisignic, sinsignic or legisignic quality; together with an iconic, indexical or symbolic quality; and at the same time as a rhematic, designative or argumentative quality. This leads to 10 possible combinations of the nine categories. Indeed, a qualisign is necessarily iconic and rhematic; it cannot take on the quality of fact or rule at the level of the sign itself and of the interpretant. A sinsign can be iconic and indexical, but it cannot take on the quality of a rule and therefore be symbolic. A legisign can be iconic, indexical and symbolic; it can also be rhematic, designic, and argumentative. Only one combination concerns the qualisign, three combinations concern the sinsign, and six combinations concern the legisign. Moreover, an argument can only be a symbol and legisign. Only one combination, therefore, concerns the argument.

The combinations are numbered from 1 to 10. The numbering starts from a potentially present quality, as a generic characteristic (qualisign, icon, rheme) and extends to a value-laden sign processed by its interpretant (legisign, symbol, argument):

The combinations are fundamental to understanding the difference between the signs as such and their uses by conventional or individual rules. They also make it possible to follow the genesis of the construction of meaning on a sign and how the signs as such designate the qualities, behaviors, actions, or roles of people and organizations.

The three instances and modes apply to social behavior, facts, actions, and performance measured with GRI’s adaptive profiles.

Quality of Signs

The iconic quality of the sign, its visual aspect or its way of incorporating the other elements of the sign predisposes it to different uses. A four-letter measurement as in the MBTI test cannot provide continuous information or intensity. The combination of four letters allows a maximum of 16 types within which people's behaviors can be located. A measurement by a diagram such as the GRI gives the possibility of giving discontinuous values ​​of intensity to each behavioral dimension and of relating the dimensions in a visual way. Comparisons between natural, adaptive and effective behaviors are made possible thanks to the visual form of the sign.

The layouts in the form of cobwebs relate the dimensions but they limit them on the side of the center of the web to a minimum value which can be 0. This problem is not present when the values ​​evolve without constraints on both sides. either side of a measuring mark.

A report commented by words allows another arrangement of nuances in a less concentrated form than diagrams or graphs. In this case, the graphic forms alone make it possible to convey information on behaviors and possibly roles. The report limits interpretations to its content and does not allow nuanced interpretations in context except to say, for example, that in such circumstances the person is likely to behave in such a way. When an analysis focuses on organizational rather than individual concerns, the relationships between the person and the context and vice versa between the context and the person are therefore more difficult to establish and qualify with comments than with symbols such as those of the GRI.

Representation of Facts

It is important to distinguish between signs according to whether they indicate qualities or actions. This distinction is essential for understanding organizational phenomena where action is at the center of social interactions, group dynamics or value creation.

Signs can therefore refer to a quality (such as 'the math bump'), a feeling, a perception, and through them potentially indicate action. But some signs can directly indicate the action without going through other signs. This sets them apart in that they can be mobilized first to reflect individual and collective actions. In this case, there is no longer any causal relationship between the sign and the action; the sign is the action. If we compare the signs to a territory, the territories to which the signs that describe the action refer are the dynamic action itself and not a territory of qualities.

The use of signs as an indicator of action makes it possible to emphasize the action itself and not the historical reasons and other cognitive, physiological or social causes that could have led to the action. The sign itself can be used functionally to describe individual and social realities from a behavioral perspective, and also adaptively in the case of GRI.

Rules and Meaning Given to Signs

In the context of an organization, the rules built on the signs correspond to what should be done in a "particular situation" due to a "specific individual characteristic" resulting from a "certain technique". These rules refer to the options that are possible or to be avoided, and are generally those that the assessment technique’s publisher communicates. They are found in manuals or through training. They correspond to the theoretical model on which the measurement technique is based and are more or less dense depending on the technique.

In producing traits and labels associated with values, the techniques rely on the interpretation that the end-user will produce from them. The technique and publisher’s rules remain distant from those of the user, because, in practice, any user has an idea of, for instance, extroversion, leadership, authority, delegation, etc.. Measures in this way only have the value of potentially questioning the user or of reinforcing them on the intensity of a construct of which they already possess their own meaning.

When a trait measured by a technique is clinical or too abstract, it forces the user to rely on their clinical adviser or expert advice to obtain insights into its meaning.

When the symbol produced by the technique requires interpretation through training or a manual, the interpretation does not follow common sense. The user needs to be able to decode the symbols to use them. This is the case for GRI’s adaptive profiles and, to a lesser extent, the four letters of the Myers-Briggs Typology Indicator (MBTI). The rules can only be found in the publisher’s reference publications and others subsequently derived from them. This, however, provides the opportunity to reconstruct meaning and rules on the symbols, including for the adaptive profiles.

Narratives are another way that assessment techniques use to produce results. The measures are interpreted into texts rather than being produced with numbers or graphs. However, in this case, users are exposed to the same common-sense phenomena described above. Moreover, although users or decoding manuals are less necessary in this case, each comment is a fragment of the interpretation of the measurements and their place in a complex of other measurements. The report and the rules expressed by it are only a part of the theory, but without its background.

Rules given in textbooks or reports or taught during training should be clear about what the assessment technique does or does not measure, as well as the relative position of the technique vis-à-vis other techniques. In the field of assessment, no measured construct makes it possible to apprehend all the others. The same is true for constructs measured by any technique. In the case of GRI, it is important to specify what is being measured in terms of social behaviors, but also where the complements to be measured are and the other techniques available for this. The enrichment of the rules to be used is at the cost of greater clarity on the arrangement of constructs and techniques. Reports written solely on the basis of personality measurements are all the more suspect as they are voluminous and aim to explain everything and generalize.

Building Meaning on Adaptive Profiles

Social behavior measures with the adaptive profile can be classified according to the 10 combinations of instances (foundation, sign as such, interpreter) and modes of existence (quality, fact, rule). The 10 combinations make it possible to follow the genesis of the construction of meaning by the interpreter.

Combination	Meaning	Sign
1	The characteristic is potentially present and general. The measure from the assessment technique exists because of the history of the technique, whatever it is, including within an organization and for its employees, who can both be considered as processes of symbol production.
2	The individual characteristic takes on a potential value, indicative of something related to action.
3	The individual characteristic is positioned in a context, whether it is expressed by a candidate who sends their resume, or in a job description, or to be collected by a recruiter.
4	The characteristic gives a direction of potential action for the person who interprets it, without being a rule.
5	The characteristic takes on a potential rule value; this is the case of the characteristics from assessment techniques or of concepts that are potentially present, taught, or explained by training courses and reference manuals.
6	The characteristic only attracts the attention of the interpreter.
7	The characteristic’s information is perceived by the interpretant who is in a position to interpret it.
8	The characteristic conveys meaning to the interpretant through a general idea.
9	The characteristic is potentially interpretable by the person. The applicable rule is connected to the sign to which it relates.
10	The characteristic is mobilized in the semiotic process.

This classification highlights the potential value of the sign to be part of the semiotic process, with, on both sides of the process, the interpreter and the social or cultural foundations of the organization. This enrichment of the semiotic process on both sides is due to the quality of the sign as an icon or as an index, but also to its capacity to build and concentrate meaning at the level of rules, conventions, and inferences, from a symbolic or argumentative and even legal standpoints. Through the symbol, the arguments conveyed can be shared and benefit from discussions, new experiences, and refutations.

The characteristics resulting from parallel techniques are private, cannot be refuted, and don’t allow comparisons and statistics to be used. They can all be analyzed through the 10 combinations of signs. They are part of everyone's semiotic process. Their legitimate value is low.

The distinction between combinations 1 and 4 highlights the dynamic nature of a sign and its ability to indicate action. We find this distinction in symbols such as those of GRI’s adaptive profiles or the Myers-Briggs Typology Indicator (MBTI)’s typologies, such as 'ISTP' or 'ESFP', which refer directly and potentially to the action that emerges from the sign, the index, and the decisign. The rules built and taught on the profiles give them potential symbolic and argument value.

The measures typically provided by assessment techniques relate to concepts that are available and used in the common language. The disadvantage is that their users include them in their everyday language, and that, consequently, these concepts do not bring them new symbolic and argumentative values. In this case, the measurement provided by the technique only has a qualisign value (combination 1).

For instance, this could be the case of a technique that measures leadership on a five-point scale. The quality of leadership measured by this technique relies on the definition that the author gave it when constructing the assessment, but it also leaves it up to the interpreter of the concept, who has already constructed their arguments about what leadership means to them. The possible explanations of the publisher will make it possible to better specify what they mean by leadership and serve as an indicator of how the person behaves in an organization. The same is true for all the adjectives and expressions that characterize organizational action (communication, extroversion, initiative, etc.). Without Sinsign and Legisign value brought by the assessment technique to the measure and without the capacity of appropriation by the user, the measures only rely on common sense and on what is conveyed not by the technique itself but by the books that discuss the concept in general.

The classification of signs can be applied not only to the measured characteristics but also to the techniques that measure them (survey, interview, 360-degree, etc.) in order to assess their use in organizations. The same reasoning as for the characteristics applies to the assessment techniques. A technique can potentially exist without being used. Its use may cover rules specific to the organization and vary from person to person. The classification of the ten combinations is useful for comparing assessment techniques, and the characteristics they measure, through what users in organizations do with them.