Every observation of a person potentially tells you something valuable about how they operate. As I explained earlier, I call these observations “dots.” A dot is a piece of data that’s paired with your inference about what it means—a judgment about what someone might have decided, said, or thought. Most of the time we make these inferences and judgments implicitly and keep them to ourselves, but I believe that if they are collected systematically and put into perspective over time, they can be extremely valuable when it’s time to step back and synthesize the picture of a person.