Why don’t people perform the way we expect them to? Perhaps you have asked yourself this question, or participated in a discussion with others related to it. Although there are many answers that could be provided, one that has recently caught my attention is the role of common ground.
I was recently at a holiday dinner reception at the Fisher College of Business hosted by the Dean. At my table were several other faculty members. At some point, the conversation turned to a favorite complaint of faculty – “Why don’t students do what is needed to do well in class?” Now, if you notice, this is a general complaint in that with a few minor substitutions, it can be applied to anyone, anywhere, at anytime. Consider “Why don’t [fill in the person or group] do [fill in the blank] to [fill in the blank]?”
Examples:
- Why doesn’t Ed do the report according to the specifications so we can move the project forward?
- Why don’t the Democrats/Republicans put more effort into cooperation to get things done?
- Why doesn’t the faculty spend more time with students so that they will do better in class?
What each of these (any many other) complaints have in common is that someone is not doing something someone else thinks they should when and how they think it should be done. With those at my dinner table, students were not behaving in what was considered by those at the table in a responsible way; they were not being personally accountable.
It was during this discussion that I realized something was really missing – common ground. The faculty at the table were assuming that students saw the world much in the same way they did. But they never tested the assumption. They just held students accountable for not being personally accountable.
The term “common ground” has different meanings. For many, it means a common or background understanding of something. For example, if we both go to a professional football game, then we have a common background understanding of what such a game is like; we have a similar experience. Or, if we both take a course on art appreciation, we have a background understanding in common. Accordingly this meaning, the way you increase common ground is by exposing people to the same or similar experiences and information.
In the case of performance and accountability, however, I don’t think this meaning of common ground is sufficient because it does not necessarily provide mutual knowledge. Mutual knowledge is another view of common ground in which both parties know the same thing. For example, if you like chocolate ice cream, and I know you like chocolate ice cream, and you know I know you like chocolate ice cream, and I know you know I know you like chocolate ice cream, we have mutual knowledge. We both know you like chocolate ice cream and we both know that each other knows it. We have that knowing in common.
There are two things that make common ground interesting to me. One is that it seems to be necessary for good communication between parties. The other is that it is apparently missing for most of us. Creating common ground takes work – it takes dialogue and really getting to know people. But rather than do that, we seem to assume that they know what we know (or they should) and then operate from there. Or worse still, we dismiss their world as invalid.
I have just started my investigation into the role of common ground and how it impacts performance, but what I have learned so far indicates it could be a key ingredient in “misunderstandings” and “miscommunications”.