In French professional culture, your right to speak on a problem connects to your expertise and credentials. Formal qualifications matter. Professional experience matters. Demonstrated mastery of a domain matters.
When addressing problems, make your relevant expertise clear—not as boasting, but as establishing your standing to contribute. When building teams, ensure you have people with recognized expertise in the relevant areas. French colleagues will want to know who is qualified to analyze this type of problem. They may be skeptical of opinions from those without clear credentials, no matter how sensible the opinions seem.
Conversely, views from recognized experts carry significant weight. If you lack expertise in an area, acknowledge it and defer to those who have it. Intellectual humility about your limits is respected; overreaching beyond your competence is not.
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