How Decoding Messages From Your Environment Can Foster Agency and Self-Management Risk Practices
- Lori Fisher
- Aug 12
- 11 min read
Updated: Aug 13
Semiotics is the comprehensive science that delves into the study of signs, encompassing a vast array of phenomena that convey meaning. Signs are not limited to traditional symbols or linguistic elements; they extend to everyday objects and experiences, and can have natural or synthetic origin. Natural signs are discovered, like a warm forehead on child that helps you know their sudden grouchiness (also a sign) may be them actually getting sick. Synthetic signs are manufactured by humankind.
Consider this lioness.
If you catch a glimpse of her face locked on you, you realize she is encoding a message for you-but her signified (what she intends to communicate to you) isn’t exactly what you think it is. Ultimately, her message to you is "run", because when you do:
It will trigger biochemicals and physiological responses in her that will increase her success of killing you.
It will position you in a way that will increase her success of killing you quickly and with less injury potential for her.
It will give her experience that will increase the success of her next kill.
In this scenario, our choice is a simple binary choice-the primal fight or flight response. But from her perspective it is complex, as she exploits distinctions, systems, relationships, and perspective to her benefit, supporting her homeostasis, her survival, and that of her offspring. We should use her as an example of the attention needed for successful communication, both sending and receiving.
Understanding Semiotics in Communication
When it comes to work, there are signs everywhere, both natural and synthetic in origin. These signs communicate information to us about us and our environment. There are printed signs, procedures, dashboards, emails, a missed checkbox on a checklist, eye contact, shrugging, wet floors, clutter, an overloaded in box, construction noise, safety vests, sun glare, back up alarms-imagine the number of messages we receive through signs in just one day at work.
Managing our dynamic environment feeds the brain information from these signs that results in an astonishing range of 30,000 to 35,000 choices a day by the typical person. This staggering number highlights the complexity and richness of our daily experiences, as we constantly process a myriad of stimuli and make decisions that shape our lives. Each choice, whether it is as simple as what to eat for breakfast, or braking your car to stop at an intersection, or as complex as deciding on a specific strategy, is influenced by a multitude of factors including personal preferences, social influences, past experiences, and immediate environmental cues.
Each of these signs communicates vital information that can influence decision-making and behavior, and if approached as encoded messaging that requires our attention and analysis, signs can be exploited for significantly better awareness and communication, and even help create self-management risk practices and establish agency and intention.
The Role of Signs in Organizational Communication
When leaders and employees gain a deeper understanding of the various types of signs present in their environment, and emitted by them, they can significantly enhance their communication strategies. This understanding allows individuals to interpret and emit not just verbal and written messages but also non-verbal cues and contextual signals.
Imagine for a moment you are a surveyor contracted to mark the foundation for a new building. When you arrive in standard attire-hard hat, safety glasses, safety vest, and composite-toe shoes- you try to get the attention of the site foreman who is clearly stressed talking on the phone to someone about the pressures of being behind schedule. They gesture for your escort to take you to the area of the new construction. When you enter the work area, you can see the traffic patterns are not set, and can hear the loud noise of vehicles, impact tools, and voices. In order to fill this order and complete your work, your focus needs to be on measuring instruments and looking down as you outline the building foundation in the dirt. This means that while you are surveying, your ability to actively communicate with others in your environment and your ability to monitor for changes in your environment will be very limited. So you need an environment free of changing and moving hazards. While you are checking out your work area, you see a tractor working in an adjacent area to your work area. Using a semiotic analysis, what would you see?
You know this is a construction site-based upon your contracted presence, the paperwork in your hand, and your observation of the yard. You know this requires specific OSHA regulations to control hazards; this site would require designated traffic patterns and spotters. Since these are missing from the site, you can conclude the management is not aware of the required safety regulations, or they are not following the standards, or not enforcing them with their vendors. When reading these signs produced by your surrounding environment, they indicate significant hazards.
Zooming in, you can see that your work area will be adjacent to the operation of a tractor, currently grading the earth for foundation pouring. You know that grading and surveying should not be occurring in the same area. Therefore, further reading of the environmental signs indicate significant hazards.
You consider the parts of your PPE. With no designated traffic patterns or spotters, you realize your PPE will not protect you in these conditions. If there is no line of sight, a safety vest cannot communicate and highlight your presence, and therefore becomes noise or a misdirected message.
From your observation of the site foreman, you know the construction schedule is behind. You know that one of the most effective actions to accelerate a project schedule is to crash it by compressing the duration of critical activities. This means adding more resources and/or reducing activity duration or overlapping processes to expedite delivery. The site foreman has crashed grading and surveying to gain some lost time, but this creates an unacceptable risk for you.
Upon completing this semiotic analysis, you directly inform the site manager, or call your supervisor, to inform them you cannot perform the survey under the current conditions. See how a semiotic analysis created agency, and self-managed risk practices? Wouldn't you love for your employees to have this kind of awareness and agency? This is actually a true story recounted in an OSHA video V-Tool, but it ended in tragedy, as no one stopped the intersection of the grading and surveying functions. Further, the tractor had no working back-up alarm along with no spotter. The tractor driver backed up, he ran over the surveyor. She died from the injuries.
Organizational communication hinges on the individual's ability to correctly process environmental signs but also awareness of the impact of noise and misdirection, which can have both internal and external origin, and interferes or distorts the intended message. Additionally, people need to be able to identify what I call "Can't Miss Messaging". An example of "Can't Miss Messaging" would be a back up alarm on a tractor trailer on a busy construction site, eye contact between a forklift driver and a pedestrian, the dangers of fentanyl use to your teenager, and the steps needed to release a purchase order.
When leaders and employees gain a deeper understanding of the various types of signs present in their environment, as well as those emitted by themselves and others, they can significantly enhance their communication strategies. This profound comprehension goes beyond the mere exchange of words; it encompasses a holistic approach to communication that includes a wide array of signals and cues that can influence interactions in the workplace.
By fostering a comprehensive understanding of the diverse types of signs present in their environment and emitted by themselves, leaders and employees can significantly improve their communication strategies. This enhanced awareness not only facilitates clearer exchanges of information but also contributes to a more cohesive and effective organizational culture. Through the recognition of noise, misdirection, and the implementation of "Can't Miss Messaging," individuals can navigate their communication landscapes with greater confidence and effectiveness.
The Role of Noise and Misdirection in Semiotic Use; Take a Lesson from the 2024 Paris Olympic Opening Ceremony Organizers
When it comes to important messaging, noise and misdirection are important to recognize, prevent, eliminate and overcome. Here is a big story from the 2024 Olympic Opening Ceremonies. This event marked the first time the Olympics opening ceremony took place outside a stadium. Among the various artistic displays, one scene included colorful drag queens, children, and a nearly naked blue-painted performer, Philippe Katerine, a reputed National French treasure. Katrerine portrayed the Greek God Dionysus, offered up on a sliver platter and lilting a coy French melody, enticing all to partake of the debauchery he offered.
This dramatic and colorful display was meant to depict the scene in Jan van Bijlert's "The Feast of the Gods", which portrayed a hedonistic dinner on Olympus with Zeus as the focal point. Wouldn't the world appreciate these Greek games being honored through a dramatization of the Greek Gods in celebration with "us", with drag queens adding to the fantastical display to plead for community tolerance, and add to the fun?
Unfortunately, the response was one of immediately pulled endorsements and significant criticism, as many, including the French Bishops' Conference, interpreted the scene as a "mockery and derision to Christianity".
Let's do a semiotic analysis. With no knowledge of the significantly lesser known "The Feast of the Gods" (the painting on the left), there was no way the general public, really anyone outside of the Olympic Committee, could correlate the scene as one of fantasy. Instead, they could only draw similarities to the painting nearly everyone knows, that of "The Last Supper" (the painting on the right). The similarities in the paintings are not a coincidence; the artist Bijlert copied the style, perspective, and framing used by Da Vinci in "The Last Supper"! So in portraying the fantastical Olympus scene of Bijlert, the Paris Olympics committee inadvertently copied the "Last Supper", sacred to Christians around the globe! What was supposed to be a national French celebration of culture and history of the games, ended up being one that everyone wanted to just quickly forget.
In the book "This Means This This Means That" Sean Hall gives a presentation of conceptual structures in semiotics and the impact of signs, that is incredibly easy to understand. This Olympic opening scenario hits almost all of his important semiotic distinctions:
What is true? What is false? It is not absolute; it is dependent upon perspective. Was this dramatic display a representation of "The Last Supper" of Christ? To the creators it was not. To the observers, it indeed was. Based upon the chain of custody of the scene elements, the display did depict "The Last Supper", if not intentionally so.
Sameness is not absolute. In what respect is x the same as y, dependent upon framing or perspective? How could people correlate a scene at the opening ceremonies to a painting they have probably never seen?
Look at things at the right level, with all its parts, in the right context. Using the Bijlert painting as a reference for this global show could have been viewed from the audience perspective and in the context of unifying the world, and the outcome would have been much different.
Subjective experience can have value as important as analysis or proof. The fact the creators were not intentionally depicting the sacred Da Vinci painting had no favorable impact on the outcome.
Reference is relevant. The Bijlert painting was heavily styled after the Da Vinci painting. The Da Vinci painting is the reference and therefore the choice to use the Bijlert painting was the basis for the misdirection of the message.
If choice is critical from a set of options, it must be coherently delineated in degrees that minimize confusion. This concept can be illustrated in the choice of a light signal of red, green, yellow for stop, go, caution. Imagine choosing 3 shades of pink instead! This would cause confusion and crashes. The Olympic committee would have done well to not reference a work of art they knew little about, but rather created a scene of their own making.
Apply these distinctions when conducting your own semiotic analysis of a situation that has gone awry, or when developing "Can't Miss Messaging".
Empowering Individuals through Sign Recognition
This heightened awareness of signs fosters a risk self-management approach, empowering individuals to take proactive measures in their roles from any perspective, not just safety. For instance, an employee who recognizes the sign of an impending deadline through an overloaded inbox may prioritize their tasks more efficiently, thereby reducing stress and increasing productivity. Similarly, a leader who is attuned to the signs of team morale—such as body language during meetings or the tone of written communications—can address issues before they escalate, creating a more harmonious work environment.
Transformative Potential for Organizations
The implications of semiotics in the workplace extend beyond individual empowerment; they can lead to transformative changes within the organization as a whole. When a culture of sign awareness is cultivated, it encourages open communication, fosters collaboration, and enhances problem-solving capabilities. Teams that are adept at interpreting signs can navigate challenges more effectively, leading to innovative solutions and improved outcomes.
Moreover, organizations that prioritize semiotic understanding can create more responsive and adaptive environments. By continually assessing the signs around them—whether they are market trends, employee feedback, or customer behavior—leaders can make informed strategic decisions that align with both internal and external realities. This adaptability not only mitigates risks but also positions the organization for sustained growth and success in a rapidly changing landscape.
In their Cabrera Lab Podcast, the Drs. Cabrera frequently emphasize a profound concept they refer to as "love reality." This idea transcends mere acceptance of facts; it embodies a deep appreciation and commitment to understanding the world as it truly is, without the distortions of bias or denial. The importance of cultivating a culture that not only seeks to uncover facts but genuinely loves and embraces reality cannot be overstated. A semiotic analysis is a validation of your mental model.
When a team operates within this framework, they cultivate an environment where transparency and honesty are paramount. Members of such a team are encouraged to voice their observations and insights without fear of judgment. This openness fosters a sense of psychological safety, allowing individuals to express concerns, share innovative ideas, and challenge the status quo. By loving reality, team members become more adept at identifying potential challenges and issues early on, rather than allowing them to fester into larger problems that could derail projects or undermine team cohesion.
Moreover, a culture that prioritizes the love of reality nurtures resilience among team members. When faced with obstacles, teams that embrace reality are more likely to confront issues head-on, analyzing them critically and collaboratively to devise effective solutions. This proactive approach not only enhances problem-solving capabilities but also strengthens the overall team dynamic, as individuals learn to rely on one another's insights and perspectives. Additionally, loving reality encourages continuous learning and adaptation. In an ever-evolving landscape, whether in scientific research, business, or any other field, the ability to acknowledge and respond to new information is crucial. Teams that foster this mindset are more agile, capable of pivoting strategies and approaches in response to changing circumstances or emerging evidence. This adaptability is a hallmark of successful teams that thrive in complex environments.
Conclusion
In summary, semiotics offers a powerful framework for understanding and optimizing communication within organizations. By recognizing and interpreting the myriad signs that permeate their environments, leaders and employees can enhance their interactions, empower themselves, and contribute to a more dynamic and resilient organizational culture. The ability to read and respond to signs effectively transforms not only individual performance but also the collective capability of the organization to thrive amidst challenges and opportunities.
A culture that loves reality is a call to action for teams across various disciplines. By prioritizing honesty, transparency, and a commitment to understanding the true nature of their challenges, teams can build a robust foundation for collaboration and innovation. As they face challenges and address issues early, they not only enhance their effectiveness but also create a more engaging and fulfilling work environment that empowers each member to contribute meaningfully.
Lori G. Fisher, PMP
PLS Management Consulting