How is cognitive wavelength correlated to the creation of common grounds? - Chapter 16

What is claim 10 about?

Common ground is the knowledge, beliefs and history we share that let us coordinate smoothly with one another. In a relay race, the runners know what to expect from one another. They are on the same wavelength. Shared beliefs let us make accurate assumptions about other people. More important, they let us make accurate predictions about what others are going to do. Teams do better when the members can predict one another’s actions more accurately.

We need to predict in order to coordinate with others, even if the others are complete strangers.

Claim 10: Leaders can create common ground by assigning roles and setting ground rules in advance.

Claim 10 asserts that we can create common ground. Good leaders prepare the members of their team to build and use predictions about one another. They carefully and clearly explain what each person should do. They explain how the team is going to work. They try to eliminate any ambiguities that may create confusion. This process will strengthen team coordination, because coordinations depends on interpredictability.

What does it actually mean? “create common ground?” Before companies try to create common ground, they should see how it works and why it fails.

What about the disclaimer?

Common ground is never as good as we think it is, and it is always eroding. We can’t prevent its erosion, especially under complex and changing conditions. Runners on a relay team find it easy to maintain common ground because there is very little variation in their actions.

When goals, roles, and abilities change, we can’t count on sustaining common ground.

Claim 10 asserts that giving clear instructions can provide common ground. And it’s true that clear instructions at the start are one basis for common ground. Certainly, clear instructions are better than vague ones, clear procedures are better than confusing ones. But giving clear instructions and having standardized procedures at the start can’t protect us.

The problem is that there is no magic formula to guarantee common ground. Some leaders are better than others at strengthening common ground at the outset, but that can’t prevent its erosion during dynamic and unexpected events.

There are also examples that are involved in breakdowns of common ground. Then, people didn’t get the information that they needed from others in their organization who had that information.

More worrisome are the common ground breakdowns in which team members hold mistaken beliefs about what others know. Common ground is always imperfect and continually eroding. Some of the reasons for this erosion are that we aren’t very good at taking the perspective of others, we get tripped up by ambiguous words, and we have different life expectancies that color our understanding.

When is attention self-centered?

We aren’t always able to take someone else’s perspective. We may assume that if we hear or see something, then others will see and hear it and understand it the way we do. We don’t appreciate that they may be focusing on something else because their different goals and priorities affect how they look and listen.

What is the ambiguity of words?

Even if we try to take another person’s perspective, we can’t be sure we mean the same thing by the same words. Risk is a word that can lead to confusion.

Teamwork doesn’t mean the same thing all over the world. Western managers can’t simply announce a set of best practices for the multinational team to follow and assume that they have created common ground. Another word that creates confusion is ‘leadership’.

We all have different experiences with leadership problems. Even when people within the same organization agree that they have a leadership problem, they are likely to mean different things, some remembering incidents, other recalling unfair acts.

One antidote to the slipperiness of words is to make better use of examples. This method, defining by example, can reduce the ambiguity of words.

Different Life experiences: Common ground also erodes because we have different life experiences that affect how we see things. Teams that have worked together for a while have shared working experiences and precedents about how to handle situation. That’s why bringing in new team members creates risks. They don’t have the shared experiences.

Claim 10 (that leaders can create common ground by assigning roles and setting ground rules in advance) is necessary but not sufficient. It suggests that we can improve common ground by preparing a team more carefully. It certainly makes sense to prepare a team by explaining everyone’s roles and functions, going over the ground rules, and describing the goals. But claim 10 goes too far in suggesting that we can rest easy once we have completed the preparation. But common ground is never perfect and is always eroding.

Common ground is much easier to establish in well-ordered stable situations. When a situation changes rapidly, we can’t count on common ground.

The replacement for claim 10 is that all team members are responsible for continually monitoring common ground for breakdowns and repairing common ground when necessary.

Once we have finished preparing the team we should still be on the lookout for breakdowns. We should continually monitor common ground, staying alert for early signs of confusion. That requirement holds for the team’s leader and also for everyone on the team.

In complex situations, the original plans, goals, roles are likely to change, degrading the team’s common ground. Instead of trying to increase control, degrading the team’s common ground. Instead of trying to increase control, we should expect common ground to erode and then repair it on the fly.

When people agree to be members of a team, they take on a responsibility to fix any important common ground breakdowns they spot, in order to increase predictability and team coordination.

If team members shirk that responsibility, the results can be tragic. Good teams are proactive, alerting everyone to unexpected events that might catch people by surprise. Common ground typically suffers during transitions.

Why does claim 10 matter?

It matters because we take common ground so much for granted that we don’t appreciate how fragile it is and how easily disrupted.

It can give teams a false sense of security. It matters also because many leaders like to issue directives and then consider their work done. They blame subordinates for anything that might go wrong instead of accepting their responsibility for monitoring and repairing the common ground in their organizations.

It matters because performance depends heavily on common ground. Most of the team failures involve breakdowns in common ground. Team coordination depends on predictability, without adequate common ground, we can’t reliably predict one another’s actions.

Common ground is the knowledge, beliefs and history we share that let us coordinate smoothly with one another. In a relay race, the runners know what to expect from one another. They are on the same wavelength. Shared beliefs let us make accurate assumptions about other people. More important, they let us make accurate predictions about what others are going to do. Teams do better when the members can predict one another’s actions more accurately.

We need to predict in order to coordinate with others, even if the others are complete strangers.

Claim 10: Leaders can create common ground by assigning roles and setting ground rules in advance.