Read The Interference
Overlay the two systems and read only the interference; blame neither.
Formerly Moiré
Two halftone screens at the wrong angle to each other.
Seen in Jesús Rafael Soto, Spirale, 1955
Try it on your work
Overlay two regular patterns from your situation (two grids, two repeating structures, one atop the other) and study only the pattern their interaction makes, which neither contains. Stop when you can describe the third pattern without reference to its parents.
Describe the same event in two consistent but different vocabularies (the official account and the corridor account) laid side by side, line against line. The shimmer between them, where both are true and neither is complete, is the actual event.
Run two internally consistent rulebooks over the same case (the written policy and the actual practice) and log every point where their combination produces an outcome neither would alone. Five interference points are enough; those five are where the organisation really lives.
How it has been used
Lay two consistent systems over each other and read the interference: the two grids that produce a third pattern neither contains, the two calendars, the two org charts. The move forbids blaming either system: the pattern you're reading belongs to the overlay, and it disappears the moment you separate them.
Where it leads
Grouped under Put different things into contact