It is clear that every time we make a promise, regardless of how big or small it may be or to whom we make it, we give our word.  It is probably less clear, however, that we also give our word every time we accept a promise.  When we accept a promise, we give our word to the person making the promise to receive whatever has been promised by the time it has been promised.

Making and accepting promises creates occasions for honoring our word and raises an important issue: “Where do we keep track of our promises so that we might honor them?”  We cannot reliably honor the promises we have made, or reliably hold others accountable for the promises they have made to us, if we do not have a record of the promises made.

Many people keep “To Do Lists” in which they record the things they want to do, but few of us keep “Due Lists” in which we record the promises we have made or accepted.  Unfortunately, too many of us keep our promises in our memory, which is notoriously unreliable.  The result is that we forget promises, making us look incompetent, political, or inconsistent.

By keeping our promises in something like a “Due List”, we increase the likelihood of remembering what we have given our word to and the chances of honoring our word.  This, in turn,  increases our credibility, trustworthiness, and effectiveness.

In any conversational interaction, such as those between “leader” and “follower”, there is speaking and listening.  Someone is talking or engaged in doing things (speaking) and someone is listening or observing (listening).

By listening, I do not mean the ability to perceive sound as in “Do you hear me?” Rather, I mean the context or filter through which what is being said is being heard.  Although we like to believe we listen with “open minds”, the reality is that we approach ourselves, situations and circumstances, and others though filters.  These filters, which are all pervasive and always with us, are made up of our already existing opinions, beliefs, interpretations, certainties, positions, concepts, theories, and what we already know to be true about a situation, event, circumstance, or person.  And, these filters color our understanding of and reaction to what is being said or what is being done.  An example of such a filter is a stereotype about a particular race or ethnic group.  Stereotypes condition not only what we think of people from that particular group, but also what we think of what they say or do and how we react to what they say or do.

As a professor, one of the listenings I am aware I have is “students don’t know, but will pretend they do”.  One of the results of this listening is that when students use a new term, I will hear their use not as the product of knowledge gained, insight, awareness, or understanding of the term, but as imitation or mimicry.  In response, I may say something dismissive or challenge them to explain themselves.  In either case, my response (my speaking) is not conductive to learning and is a function of MY listening, not what the students said (their speaking).

I am confident that I am not the only one who’s speaking is shaped by the filters of my listening, filters I am not always conscious of.  Indeed, Zaffron and Logan, in their book The Three Laws of Performance: Rewriting the Future of Your Organization and Your Life, make it clear that listening is a crucial part of leadership and that it is possible to detect and shift our listening(s).  If this is the case, and our speaking is shaped by our listening, then personal leadership effectiveness may have more to do with listening than the actions and behaviors in which we engage.

So why aren’t we focusing on leader listening and how that shapes their speaking?

As I have pointed out elsewhere, blaming resistance may be more about managers saving face and avoiding responsibility for the negative impact of their leadership than an accurate report on the responses of those actually implementing the change.  When it comes to change, leaders are generally told that the key to success is to be found in the steps they take to implement the change (see for example, John Kotter’s Leading Change).  The implication is that no matter what relationship leaders have with followers prior to the change, if they follow the right implementation process, they are likely to succeed.  But this implication may be more wishful thinking than practical advice.

A study reported in the Journal of Applied Psychology indicates that the overall relationship leaders have with their followers is more important in determining whether followers buy in to a change than are specific steps they take in implementing the change.  Where that relationship is based in trust and credibility, followers are more likely to buy in to a particular change.  In other words, if the leader is a jerk, then even if they follow the right implementation steps, the change is unlikely to succeed.

One implication of this study is that what leaders call resistance to change may be more a reflection of their relationship to those they lead than an attribute or characteristic of those same people.

What is a “sufficient period of time”? It is the amount of time it takes to get something done given (a) the nature of the work required and (b) the productivity of the person (people) doing the work.  In general, the more complex and involved the work, the longer it will take to get done compared to work that is less complex or involved.  Similarly, the more productive the person (people) doing the work, the less time it will take than someone who is less productive.

Example

One of the jobs I perform several times each University quarter is grading exams.  How long it takes me to grade an exam depends first on the nature of the work required. Are there 50 exams to grade, or 150? Just as important, what type of exam is it? An exam that has all objective questions – multiple choice and true-false questions – is much faster to grade than an all essay question exam.

And in addition to the nature of the work, what are the factors that influence my productivity?  One is my reading speed, which is influenced by the writing quality of the student answers on essay questions. A second is my writing speed, for making comments that will give students feedback on both types of exam. And a third is my sitting tolerance – how long I can stay focused on the grading task. I find my tolerance is higher when student writing is good, and lower when it’s not.

A sufficient period of time for me to grade exams, therefore, depends on what type of exam I give and my productivity while grading. The only two ways I can reduce the time it takes to grade an exam is by (1) changing the design of the exam (more objective, less essay) and/or (2) improving my productivity.

As an example, if it takes 1.5 hours to grade one question in a short-answer essay exam for a graduate class of 25 people.  If there are four questions on the exam, I will need a total of 6 hours in order to grade the entire exam for the whole class. I can choose to break it up into four segments of 1.5 hours, or two segments of 3 hours, etc. But if I schedule less time than that, I will not complete grading the exam.

Like the Law of Gravity, we must account for the First Law of Accomplishment.  In order to accomplish something, you must have a sufficient period of time in which to get it done.  If you don’t allocate the time, it won’t get done. Of course, you can get something done in less time if you do a sloppy job. Doing incomplete work, however, damages people’s credibility and reputation.

Steps to Obeying the First Law of Accomplishment

There are four things that will help you obey the First Law of Accomplishment.

1.       Record Your Promises.  You can’t accomplish what you can’t find or can’t remember.  Keep a record of everything you have agreed to do. Write your promises and commitments down somewhere – preferably in one place, like a promise log – and then refer to it regularly until the promises are completed.

Ideally you record (a) What is due to someone, (b) Who it is to be delivered to, and (c) When it is due – plus enough particulars about the “deliverable” so you can determine how much work will be involved. Be sure to consider the different types of work that may be involved – the desk and computer work, phone and email work, research, writing, getting approvals, etc.

2.       Determine the time periods needed to complete the accomplishment.  Given the nature of the work to be done and your level of productivity, determine how much time will be required to complete the assignment.  Bear in mind that most people are overly optimistic about how long something takes to get done, and as a result they often grossly underestimate the amount of time they will need.  If something takes six hours, don’t assume you can get it done in five.

I have learned that most people do not know how long it takes to do the many jobs they have, even the ones they do on a recurring basis.  It took me several University quarters to determine how long it takes to grade different types of assignments.  And grading is only one part of my work!

Determine whether your promise for a particular “deliverable” (a promised product, service, or other result) will take four hours, or fourteen hours. And decide if it would be best to do it all at once, broken up into two or three – or more – steps, i.e., the number and size of specific “periods of time” you will require to accomplish the promised result.

3.       Determine the time available in your schedule to do the work. If you are like most people, you have far less time in which to do the work you have promised than you realize.  The reason for this is because of meetings, appointments, recurring events (including lunch and breaks), and interruptions.  When you are engaged in any of these things, you are not available for working on the other things you have promised – the “accomplishment work” that will fulfill your commitments.

In order to determine when you can work on the things you have promised, start with a blank schedule, then put in all the appointments and meetings you plan to attend, the recurring events like meals and coffee breaks, and an estimate of when you are most likely to be interrupted (and for how long). NOTE: Most of us have more control over interruptions than we think we do, and we know something about our typical patterns of timing and duration of interruptions too.

So what’s left? The time that remains after all these things are accounted for is your unscheduled time.  That is the time you have available for working on everything else – including your “accomplishment work”.  Pause a moment here to allow yourself to be shocked at how much time you are giving to appointments, meetings, recurring events, and interruptions, and how little you are giving to your “accomplishment work”.

4.       Schedule your work, then follow your schedule. Now that you know how many time periods are needed to complete the work you have promised (#2 above) and how much time you have available for doing that work (#3 above), you can schedule the work.  Put the periods of time necessary to accomplish your promises into your calendar.

One trick here is not to schedule yourself too tightly (i.e., back-to-back with no space in between), so that when unexpected events occur, you have some flexibility to deal with them.  Another trick is to use your schedule when people ask you to do things: when someone wants you to do something, pull out your calendar and look to see when you will be able to do the work required.

Remember, the First Law of Accomplishment says, “The accomplishment of anything requires a sufficient period of time in which to accomplish it.”  When your schedule is full, you will be unable to make new promises without modifying or revoking existing promises. Use your schedule as a guide to when you can say yes, and what conditions you must apply to the agreements you make.

This will put your all of your communication skills to work. You can make requests for resources and support, decline to take on something you know you cannot deliver, and make requests to change agreements on due dates for promises you have made with other people.

Conclusion

The biggest challenge to our personal performance is finding ourselves overcommitted because we have (1) failed to keep a good record of everything we have promised, (2) underestimated the amount of time a job will take, and/or (3) overestimated the amount of time available.  When we say yes to more things than we have time in which to do them, we are in an argument with the First Law of Accomplishment. This argument is stressful and unwinnable.  The integrity of your scheduling process is what produces your calendar, establishes the validity of your promises, and provides the foundation for your personal effectiveness. It’s best to make friends with the First Law of Accomplishment.

[This article is reprinted from The Great Managing Newsletter, Vol. 9, Issue 22, November 30, 2010 by permission of Jeffrey and Laurie Ford. For additional information, visit www.laurieford.com or www.professorford.com]

What do I mean by infrastructure?  All the tools, equipment, facilities, practices, and routines we use to accomplish anything.  Stuff like pens, pencils, computers, desks, computer programs, meetings, agendas, and standard operating procedures are all part of our infrastructure.  Much of our infrastructure is transparent to us, so much so that we can operate without even thinking about it.  We know where to find the coffee cups for our morning coffee, where the shampoo is in the shower, and we drive our cars without consciously considering gas pedal, brake, steering wheel, mirror, etc.  As Nike says, we just do it.

About the only time it seems that we notice much of our infrastructure is when it doesn’t work.  It is at those times that it comes out of the background of transparency and into the foreground of a problem or breakdown.  And when our infrastructure doesn’t work, IT becomes the things we focus on, and our productivity drops.  Just recall the last time your word processing, spreadsheet, or presentation software didn’t work if you want to see the impact of an infrastructure breakdown.  No matter how motivated or committed you are, or how inspired you are by leaders, if the infrastructure doesn’t work, your productivity dives until the infrastructure is repaired.

I believe our infrastructure establishes the limits of our productivity.  For the past several years, I have been focused heavily on publishing academic articles dealing primarily with change management and resistance to change.  My book shelves, both at home and work, my computer files, and the classes I taught were all organized around academic publications in the area of change management.  My infrastructure supported change management, so when I looked around to see what I could work on, all the things in my infrastructure pointed to and called for “change management”.

Recently I was promoted to full professor.  As a result, the “publish or perish” pressure is off and I no longer “have to” publish.  I am really free to work on whatever I want.  Although I have always worked on what I was interested in, the big difference now is that there is no “have to” in the background nagging me to do another article or book.  So, what will I work on with all this new found freedom?

Well initially I found that I continued doing what I had done before.  How could I do much else when all my infrastructure was organized to support someone who was working on becoming a full professor, not someone who was a full professor?  If I wanted to do something different, I would have to build a new infrastructure.  The one thing I knew I wanted to do was play more golf, so I joined the OSU Golf Course.  A new piece of infrastructure that requires I develop new habits and ways of working.  I also just completed taking an inventory of the books in my home office to see what no longer speaks to me.  Interestingly, a number of books I have had for years are now gone.  Next are the computer files.

The leadership literature tells us you need a vision in order to know what infrastructure is required to fulfill it.  But how do you clear the space so that you can see what vision to create?  As I eliminate more of the infrastructure I have depended on for years, I have an experience of less constraint and more freedom to pursue other things.  But I also notice that I have less certainty about what to do.  Our existing infrastructures support who we know ourselves to be.  When we start taking them apart, it can create some uncertainty.

So, I am in the midst of dismantling one infrastructure and building a new one.  I suspect that this will take sometime.

Consider the case of Paul (you met him earlier in http://professorford.com/2010/02/01/is-demanding-%E2%80%9Cnow%E2%80%9D-undermining-leadership/).  He has consistently had problems with his boss not setting deadlines and calling things “high priority”.  From where Paul sits, this habit is frustrating, inefficient, and ineffective.  So he wants his boss to stop doing it and start having more complete performance conversations in which deadlines are established and agreements for actions and results clearly established.  Now, unlike many people who just complain about their bosses, Paul has actually talked to his boss about the issue, but without success.

In the face of his failure, Paul asked, “I need to come up with an angle/pitch that proves unequivocally that the form of “high priority” manipulation my boss uses is inefficient.  I need to detail a “process” to help him make better requests more efficiently. Any thoughts, resources, and editorial skills are welcome.”

I told him, “If it were me, I would want to know what my boss is concerned about, what he is accountable for and how he wins at his game.  Inefficiency may not be his thing in which case you are showing him something he may not care about. The thing that is likely to interest him is if you can show him that his actions are actually working to limit him getting what he wants or cares about.”

No matter how insane, inane, or just plain stupid the actions of a boss may seem to us, those exact same actions look reasonable, appropriate, and potentially effective from the boss’s point of view.  Bosses and the people who work for them live in different worlds – what looks “wrong” in our world looks “right” in theirs.  So, if you want to understand more about why bosses do what they do, you will want to learn more about what the world looks like to them rather than judge them from a world they do not inhabit – ours.

Paul raised an interesting issue: “Maybe that is the problem in of itself.  Maybe my requests to understand his concerns are not good enough.  It feels that when the topic comes up I am rebuffed more than answered.  I will have to think some more on that.  Maybe the simple answer is that my request is just not understood?”

What I like about Paul’s response is that he is beginning to consider that maybe he has something to do with how his boss is acting.  Rather than put all the blame on his boss, or make what his boss is doing wrong, Paul is looking at one of the things he can personally control – his own communications.

I told Paul, “Perhaps he doesn’t understand why you would want to know what they [his concerns, etc.] are. There are at least two reasons someone might want to know my concerns – to support me or to thwart me.  Since most people don’t seem to care about the concerns of others, it can be seen as strange and create suspicion and guardedness.  The key would be to make it clear you are his partner in winning and that your only interest is to support him in winning at what he needs to win at.  Any other reason is worthy of suspicion.  If any of this were the case for him, then the approach would be a closure conversation to acknowledge the past attempts and your concern that your interest may have seemed out of place and apologize for that.  Then let him know it was out of an interest in support and that you still have that and if he is willing to share with you, you promise your support, thereby creating a new agreement with him [or something like that].”

Bosses are interested in winning at the game they are accountable for to their bosses, and anything we do that does not support them in that is seen as a hindrance, a distraction, or unnecessary.  Paul’s wanting deadlines is something he wants, not something his boss necessarily sees as valuable no matter how often Paul tries to explain it to him.  However, if through the use of deadlines, Paul can have his boss win, his boss is more likely to see the value in deadlines.  Paul now has a choice, complain about the way his boss works, or become a partner to his boss and use what he (Paul) knows to have his boss win.  If what Paul has to offer has value, the proof will be in the results.

Paul wants his boss to use deadlines rather than calling everything “high priority”.  One way of accomplishing that is to partner with his boss.  Now he has to decide if he wants to do that, or if he just wants to BMW (bitch, moan, and whine) about his boss – could be a tough choice!

There are lots of reasons why we don’t like some people at work: they don’t treat us or others the way we think they should, they create problems for us and others, they don’t do what they say they will, and so on.  For the most part, these differences don’t create problems for us and we can go on about our work without much difficulty.  But occasionally the fact that we don’t like them, or the things they do, gets in our way.  It is at these times that our lack of affinity for them actually works against us; our effectiveness is reduced, our stress increases, and we lose our sense of humor.  Work gets harder and more unpleasant and it takes longer and more effort to get things done.  And, we blame them.

What we fail to consider in all this is that it is OUR lack of affinity for them that is an issue.  It is not surprising that we treat people we like differently than the people we don’t. Nor is it surprising that we use the fact we like or dislike someone as a justification for how we treat them.  When asked why we do or don’t do things for others, we are likely to respond (if truthful) “I like/don’t like them”.   We act as if they are responsible for our liking or disliking them; that it is their fault we don’t have much affinity for them.  As a result, we believe that unless and until they change, our relationship with them has little chance of improving.  We are not responsible.

Like most people, the managers in my MBA class bought into this line of reasoning.  That is, until they did an exercise in which each one of them wrote a letter to three people they didn’t particularly like.  In the letter, they were to write out exactly what they would say to the person to authentically:
1. Acknowledge the person for something they had done but which the manager had not acknowledged, e.g., completing a project on time;
2. Appreciate something about the person, e.g., a good sense of humor;
3. Apologize for a mistake or misunderstanding the manager was responsible for but had not owned up to, e.g., not providing clear directions on an assignment; and
4. Amend an agreement that had been broken but had been stepped over, e.g., an agreement to meet on a weekly basis which wasn’t kept.

What surprised each and every manager was that they had more affinity for the person after they wrote the letter than before.  They discovered that it was their interpretations, assessments, evaluations, and conclusions about the other person that was the source of their liking or disliking them, not the other person.  They realized that they could be responsible for their affinity toward others and that if they were willing, they could shift that affinity.  What they found most exciting was that they could potentially improve their working relationships with other people if they were willing to authentically engage in something as simple as acknowledging, appreciating, apologizing, and amending agreements with them.

Escape hatches, however, can undermine our success. When it comes to the promises we make, it helps us keep them if we cultivate a “no alternative” attitude in which failure is not an option.  One way to do this is to root out any talk about “I’ll try”, or “I’ll do my best”, or “I’ll see”.  I have a friend Blair who has a habit of saying “No problem” in response to the requests made of him.  When I first heard Blair say that, I asked, “How can you say ‘no problem’ when you don’t know if it can be done?”  His response was “If I go into something with that point of view, I am much more open to what is required and willing to take it on because I was the one who said it wan’t going to be a problem.  This doesn’t mean it won’t take work or that there won’t be setbacks, there almost always are, it’s just that it gives me a different context in which to work than ‘I’ll try.”  For Blair, saying “no problem” was a way of burning the boats.

Another way to create a “no alternative” attitude is to make promises to people you would never consider not keeping it.  Stephanie, a manager, wanted to hire a staff person.  Her boss, however, was unwilling to commit the additional resources.  Undeterred, Stephanie promised that if the goal for which the staff person was being hired was not achieved, then her boss could not only assign the staff person to someone else, but also reduce her development budget (a big deal in this organization).  By making this promise, which her boss accepted, Stephanie was burning the boats.

If you’re serious about making and keeping a promise, take a tip from Caesar: he wasn’t interested in trying, he was interested in conquest.  As Yoda, the Jedi master in Star Wars said to Luke Skywalker “Do or do not.  There is no try.”   If you want more than half-hearted efforts from people, find a way to help them burn the boats.

I encounter this complaint from the managers in my MBA classes as well as those I interact with in the “real world”. They insist that a lack of accountability is the primary source of the problems they have in their organizations.  Laurie (my management consultant wife) encounters it with her clients, some of whom maintain that the reasons for inefficiency and poor communication is because people are not being accountable.

It’s as if “accountability” has become the new mantra of managers or the new solution for whatever problems leaders might be having getting things accomplished.  “If people were more accountable, we would be much better off,” they say.

Unfortunately, the call for “more accountability” is often one sided, focusing on the lack of accountability in others, and fails to recognize that there are two sides to accountability: the “holder” side and the “producer” side.  The two sides are located in different places and both are necessary to have any accountability actually perform.

Holder Accountability is the responsibility of a person who wants something, asks for it, and “holds” that commitment until the result is produced. A person with Holder Accountability might be a manager who wants her team to handle customer service calls, or a supervisor who wants his crew to repair equipment. The manager or supervisor (or parent, or friend) requests what s/he wants and then checks back at the end of the day or week or month to see what portion of the request is completed. The manager holds people to account by asking the customer service team or the repair crew to account for their work, their performance, and their results.

When your boss gives you an assignment and then asks you questions regarding its status, she is demonstrating Holder Accountability, holding you to account for the assignment.  Similarly, if you tell a colleague you will do something for them by Friday and they ask you about it on Thursday or Friday (or the following Monday), they are holding you to account for what you said you would do.

The second side of accountability is Producer Accountability. It is the accountability of the person or group who will be producing the results or doing the work: the customer service phone team and the equipment repairmen who are doing their jobs are demonstrating Producer Accountability. They were assigned to do a job and they are doing it, and they will report on the status and outcomes as needed.

There is no “accountability” without both halves of the equation. If there is nobody making a clear request for something to be done and who cares enough about that request to follow through and see that it actually is performed, there is no Holder Accountability. If there is nobody who accepts the request to perform the work, there is no Producer Accountability. Getting “more accountability” in an organization requires accountability on both sides of the table: manager and staff, boss and worker, or any person who asks for something from another and the person(s) they ask.

Someone else can impose Holder Accountability on us, but only we can impose Producer Accountability on ourselves.  When my doctor gives me a diet to reduce my cholesterol, I don’t think about that as any kind of accountability – until I go back the next year for another blood test. She looks at the blood test results and she can tell whether I’ve kept my part of the bargain or not.  Producer Accountability is completely self-generated, and we have only ourselves to look to if it is missing. My doctor will hold me accountable by saying, “Your cholesterol has improved, but only a little bit. How much did you follow the diet?”

Authentic Producer Accountability says that we own the work we have to do – it is ours.  It’s like saying, “I will look to see what needs to be done to accomplish this, and I will do it. I will get the help and the resources needed, and if I can’t find them, I’ll get back to you and ask for your guidance in how to take the next steps.”

So, what is it that leaders are really calling for when they call for “more accountability” in their organizations? More often than not they want more Producer Accountability.  They want employees to show initiative in taking on work, to own their work, and to do what needs to be done without constant supervision and without excuses.

But here’s the catch: if a leaders does not provide a clear request with a visible outcome that permits a follow-up, they are not living up to their side by providing any Holder Accountability.  Furthermore, if a manager has no commitment to holding people to account, and following up with them regarding their performance, workers will eventually assume the managers doesn’t really cares how, when, or if the work gets done.

It is wishful thinking to expect people to generate a high level of Producer Accountability in the absence of Holder Accountability.  The key to building a culture and organization of “more accountability” starts by creating the conditions for authentic Holder Accountability.  In other words, if managers want more accountability, then they will want to learn how to assign work in a way that makes what people are accountable for clear and then hold them to account. Good Holder Accountability gives people a reason to develop Producer Accountability: with a great manager, I’ll maintain or improve my work performance even when I’m in a bad mood.

How can you improve your Holder Accountability?  Here are some ideas:

1.            Spell out the conditions and measures that must be met in order for the assignment to be considered successful.  People need to know what the job is, and you need to know how to tell if they did it. No fair saying, “Do a better job.” You’ve got to say how you – and they – will measure success.  People need to know the “what”, and if needed the “how”, they will be held to account for.

2.            Provide specific time lines and due dates for when you’ll be checking back with them. They need to know YOUR timeline for your Holder Accountability, and when they will be expected to give you a status report or a result.  They need to know the “when” they will need to account for.

3.            Follow through on a consistent and regular basis, such as weekly debrief meetings in which people have to report on the status of all their work and make projections about what they will accomplish in the following week. Holder Accountability is all about reliable follow-up on assignments and is where holding them to account actually happens.

As to building Producer Accountability, here are some tips:

1.            Be sure you assign work to people who have the ability to do the job.  When you give a work assignment to someone you know will fail, it will not build their Producer Accountability. It will build resentment, distrust, and cynicism. If you have people who can’t do the job, you may have a training problem but you don’t have an accountability problem.

2.            Be sure people have all the information and resources they need to succeed. You can’t expect people to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. You’ll build Producer Accountability by telling people that you want them to be specific about what resources they need, to assemble as much as they can themselves, and to come to you when they need help.

3.            Give people timelines, milestones, and deadlines. It will support them in good planning to meet your expectations.  No fair saying, “Do it as soon as possible.” Performance is a function of time, and if people don’t have deadlines, they can’t organize their resources to deliver what you want.

When you strengthen your own Holder Accountability, you also strengthen other people’s Producer Accountability.  If you want more accountability in your workplace, start building it!

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”.