The “Common Ground” Dialogue: Working with Upwardly and Downwardly Divided Teams

Abstract

In this chapter, we introduce the cognitive and social-emotional team cohesion (CSTC) triangle which aids understanding how a team is developmentally constituted in terms of its majority and minority. Adopting a bird’s-eye view of teams in general, we distinguish between two fundamentally different forms of collaboration: one that we call “upwardly,” and the other that we call “downwardly,” divided, where by “divided” we imply “between team majority and minority.” We demonstrate that these two dynamics assume a different form in each of the three We-Spaces we distinguish. Throughout, we offer advice on how to deal with the two contrasting dynamics in each of the three We-Spaces.

Team cohesion is a function of two nonbehavioral factors: (1) differences in the way in which team members together build knowledge (cognitive dimension; “tools”) and (2) differences in how they relate to themselves and others (social-emotional dimension; “stance”).