The Rule
The Specificity Principle is the governing rule for constructing cognitive verification prompts. It defines what a valid prompt must include and what it must exclude. Violating the Specificity Principle converts a cognitive verification conversation into a leading question that produces compliance rather than thinking.
What the Prompt Must Include
What the Prompt Must Exclude
Why the Exclusions Matter
The exclusions are as important as the inclusions. If the supervisor leads the witness, the exercise fails. The entire purpose of cognitive verification is to make the worker's thinking visible. If the supervisor injects their own observations into the prompt, the response reflects the supervisor's cognition, not the worker's.
Consider the difference between these two prompts:
"Mike, I noticed the wind picked up and there is scaffolding near the lift zone. Make sure you watch for that when you do the hydraulic line replacement." This is a directive. Mike will nod and say "got it." No thinking has been verified.
"Mike, walk me through how you are going to execute the hydraulic line replacement on Unit 7 today." This is a WMTI prompt. If Mike is cognitively engaged, the wind and the scaffolding will appear in his response without prompting. If they do not appear, a real gap has been surfaced and can be addressed through Echo and Expand before work begins.
The Discipline
The Specificity Principle sounds simple. It is not. Supervisors have spent their entire careers telling workers what to watch for, correcting deficiencies, and ensuring compliance through direction. The instinct to lead the witness is deeply ingrained. The Crucible intervention specifically targets this instinct, making it psychologically uncomfortable to return to leading questions after supervisors understand what they have been missing.
Next: The Crucible. The intervention that installs this discipline.