Common Ground

BFNow Self-Study Module 5 - Exploration 1

[This is part of BFNow Self-Study Module 5: Collaboration. For more about the overall Self-Study program, please look at About BFNow Self-Study and BFNow Self-Study Orientation.]

If you haven’t done so already, let me encourage you to pause, relax and release, perhaps with a big stretch or three deep breaths.

The goal for this module is for you to become comfortable, in practical ways, with the territory of collaboration by applying the tools we’ve worked with so far plus some new tools.

I am assuming that, in your role as a Planetary Era catalyst, you’ll be influencing the process and character of the collaboration beyond just participating. These explorations are intended to support your capacity to do so.

The goal of this lesson is for you to explore building common ground for a group of collaborators.

Let’s start.

Common Ground

We collaborate with others, generally, out of a sense of some combination of shared purpose and relational connection. For example, you help out a friend on her project because she is your friend; you join a group to clean up a local park because you and the others in the group want to improve the park.

Often, we assume more commonality than actually exists and any mismatch in our expectations and assumptions can get us into trouble as the collaboration develops, especially for more significant collaborations.

To avoid this, it's helpful to build common ground by making assumptions explicit and, in various ways, improving the alignment and shared understandings among the collaborators.

Explicit common ground is thus a vital part of the infrastructure that enables successful collaboration. It deserves conscious attention and a toolbox of ways to develop it, especially when you are starting a new collaboration or when, in an ongoing collaboration, you want to deepen your mutual understanding.

Think of the toolbox that follows as a checklist to help you and your collaborators explore the full extent of your common ground. You may not need all of the items for any particular shared endeavor but you should at least consider and consciously choose whether to include each one.

Here’s the toolbox:

Agreements

The usual way in which people establish explicit common ground is through language-based agreements. These can be as simple as a conversation or a one sentence vision statement, or as elaborate as a multi-page legal or planning document. While far from perfect and burdened with all of the limitations of language, it is the default for most people and generally worth including as part of your common ground.

When you do this, you might want to consider including these topics:

• Purpose and outcomes – Why are you collaborating and what's the intended outcome from your collaboration? For more involved collaborations, this is a good place to uses something like Sociocracy's Vision, Mission, and Aims approach.

• Process – How will plans be made, work distributed and decisions be made? How will you communicate with each other?

• Contexts – We all carry our contexts (frameworks, history, values, other parts of our life, etc.)with us and they often include many assumptions. Many collaborations are part of larger projects that provide context for the immediate endeavor. In addition, if we are to engage in win-win-win collaboration, we need to know the contexts that we will want to include in the third "win". Likewise, for many collaborations, there are operational, organizational and even legal contexts that need to be aligned with. Good to make these contexts explicit.

• Scope – What is the expected scope of your collaboration? For example, if you are "cleaning up the park", how much will you do? Are just picking up litter or are you removing invasive plants and repairing a stream bank?

• Evolution – What's the origin story and history so far for this collaboration? Are there visions for how it might evolve beyond the current endeavor? How will you all support learning and adaptation in the endeavor?

System Models

The co-creation of system models can be a powerful way to map complex territories and build shared understanding. Creating relevant system models together – as a shared process – offers a huge opportunity for expanding a group’s common ground. This is another great way to help existing contexts to become visible and to create new shared contexts.

Experiences

Shared experiences, outside of your usual collaborative activities, broaden your understanding of each other and provide common reference points that build group culture. I’ve heard the advice for couples that they should go camping or at least go on a long car trip with each other before they get too serious. If it doesn’t end the relationship it will make it stronger. 😉 Whether it’s going to a movie, a conference or river rafting together, there are a wide range of shared experiences that can build common ground.

Here’s a visual summary of these helpful inputs for creating your common ground:

Experiential

1. Choose a collaborative group that you either
   ○ are part of
   ○ were part of, or
   ○ plan to be part of.

2. Drawing on the above toolbox, think of how you might first make explicit and then expand and/or strengthen the common ground for that group.

3. Use your journal to write out (and maybe draw out) an actionable plan for what you would do, perhaps with something under each of the above headings.

4. Were you ever part of a group that got in trouble because of too many unspoken and unshared assumptions and expectations? How might a more explicit exploration of common ground have helped?

If you are currently part of a collaborative group – anything from a primary relationship and family to work teams and volunteer groups – and the others in the group are open to this, share this exploration with them and use it as a starting point for consciously exploring your common ground. Even in groups and relationships where you know each other well, there are likely activities in this explortion (like building shared system maps/models) that could lead to greater mutual understanding.

If you have questions or comments, please post them here.

Thanks,
Robert

[Link back to the Module 5: Collaboration Overview page.]