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How to do Critical Incident Analysis?

The critical incident technique (CIT) is a behavioral qualitative tool popularized by John C. Flanagan in 1954 through his paper “The Critical Incident Technique” as published in the Psychological Bulletin. Originally, Flanagan used this technique in the United States Air Force Army during World War II as a way of improving the methodology used in evaluating job description, performance appraisal, and in designing functional training programs (Ansari & Baumgartel, 1981, p. 221). By Flanagan’s own words, he described CIT as:
“A set of procedures for collecting direct observations of human behavior in such a way as to facilitate their potential usefulness in solving practical problems and developing broad psychological principles. The critical incident technique outlines procedures for collecting observed incidents having special significance and meeting systematically defined criteria.” (Flanagan 1954, p. 327).
For an incident to be considered critical, according to Flanagan, from the point of view of the observer, it must be crucial to the job of the person being observed and that a corresponding behavior is exhibited by the person under observation which critically led to the success or failure in handling the incident (Flanagan, 1954). In this paper, the CIT will be applied using a personal experience on cross-cultural misunderstandings in the workplace and reflect on it using the theoretical frameworks of cultural interpretation and from a managerial perspective.

I am being guilty of committing cross-cultural misunderstanding with polychronic people at work. The concept of monochronic vs polychronic culture came to my understanding clearly just only recently. And when I try to reflect back in my work experiences, I realized now that I am a monochronic person and that explains why I often get into bad terms with workmates who seem to be lacking in focus and the urgency in doing the job right away. One vivid example of this was when I held a position as the team leader of a group of design engineers from a company I work previously. There was this one member that I am so frustrated with often. Although we have official deadlines to all the projects we’re working in the operational level, however, in my team, I always set an earlier deadline so when there are unforeseen circumstances that affect the work, there’s still time to check my team’s output and meet the actual deadline. However, this one member often missed the deadline I set and based on my observation, he seems to be doing other things as well that are less relevant to tasks assigned to him. I sometimes caught him in just a few hours of being focused at his workstation but suddenly you with see him around chatting with other workmates. So, often, I reprimand him, and this created really a friction in our working relationship.

The CIT is a five-step process that is systematic and sequential in nature. The steps are namely: (1) Establish the general aims; (2) Establish plans and specifications; (3) Collect the data; (4) Analyze the data; (5) Interpret and report the data (Hughes et al., 2007, p. 51). In relation to the case, if I had only known the existence of CIT before, it could explain objectively why that person frequently missed the deadline I set for the team and could make sense of his lack of urgency and focus to the task assigned to him. Perhaps, I could have avoided reprimanding him frequently which obviously affected his drive at work and could have developed a better working relationship. If I had known then the existence of monochronic vs polychronic culture concept, I might have able to adjust to the working style of that person and have devised a strategy that may not necessarily alter his polychronic orientation but complement it and make the best use out of it for the team’s goal.

Using Hofstede’s cultural dimension theory, the case can also be evaluated using the identity dimension. Realizing it now, my orientation in the identity spectrum is pointing towards the individualism end while that team member I mentioned on this case seems to be oriented to the other side of the identity spectrum which is the collectivism. According to Hofstede, a person who has a collective orientation tends to value relationships and has the needs to be integrated into a close-knitted group environment (as cited in Cultural Intelligence for Leaders, 2012). That explains why that person cannot focus on his work for long as he has the needs to interact with other people and does not want to be left in his cubicle all day long. Perhaps, this also the reason why I have been frustrated with him often as he has an obviously pronounced collectivism needs while I am in the opposite side.

If I view that incident now in the shoes of a manager, I might have handled my frustrations differently. I could have been more objective and suspended my biases. If I have known before what I know now about cultural intelligence, my approach could have been very different. As a manager, it is expected of me to understand the cultural background and idiosyncrasies of the people that I am leading. It is the best interest of managers to find out what makes a person tick and that includes navigating to each individual’s differences, so it can be leveraged for the organization’s goals. It is important as well for managers to suspend its biases and ideals so its judgment will not be clouded. As a manager, knowing the tools that will help in navigating cultural differences is essential such as the ABC of cultural intelligence, Hofstede’s cultural dimension, Hall’s cultural dimension, and CIT to name a few. The outcome of how I handled the cross-cultural misunderstanding in the incident I cited could have been more positive using these tools I mentioned.
Conclusion
The CIT has many applications. It goes beyond what Flanagan originally intended it to be. Its application expands to several disciplines such as social science, psychology and counseling, management, and even in education. It can even be applied to understanding cultural issues. It is another useful tool that a manager or the organization can add in its toolkit in dealing with organizational struggles such as in the case of cross-cultural setting. CIT is not a flawless tool. So, knowing its advantages and disadvantages can help a manager or the organization when CIT would be favorable to employ.




References
Ansari, M. A. & Baumgartel, H. (1981). The Critical Incident Technique: Description and Current Uses. Journal of Social & Economic. Studies, 9 (2) pp. 221-231. Retrieved from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236841510_The_Critical_Incident_Technique_Description_and_Current_Uses_1
Cultural Intelligence for Leaders (2012). Creative Commons by-nc-sa 3.0. Available online at http://2012books.lardbucket.org/books/cultural-intelligence-for-leaders/
Flanagan, J. C. (1954). The critical incident technique. The Psychological Bulletin, 51(4),
             327-358. Retrieved from: https://www.apa.org/pubs/databases/psycinfo/cit-article.pdf
Hughes, H., Williamson, K., & Lloyd, A. (2007). Critical Incident Technique. In: Lipu, Suzanne, (ed) Exploring methods in information literacy research. Topics in Australasian Library and Information Studies, Number 28. Centre for Information Studies, Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga, N.S.W., pp. 49-66. Retrieved from: https://eprints.qut.edu.au/17545/1/17545.pdf


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