Common ground (communication technique)

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This article is about the interpersonal communication technique of finding common ground. For other uses see Common Ground.

Finding common ground is a technique for facilitating interpersonal relationships. In order to find common ground between parties, participants must search for signals of recognition, which are often subtle and cause for misunderstanding. Generally, smiles, bland faces, or frowns can be the positive, neutral or negative signals. When verbal communication is possible, the participants can speak and then listen.

When Albert Einstein was new to the United States he once found common ground with a stranger (who recognized him) by pointing to a fish in the water and uttering:

Fisch. He was later punched in the nose.

Historically, the commons in many communities were a place which was available to everyone, such as the village pump, or the sidewalk of a road. Thus even for those far from home, the sight of someone familiar only from the commons might be comforting to a homesick or lonely traveller. This effect can be seen in many kinship groups.

However, to some people in small-enough communities, conflict has occurred between them has occurred too often to find common ground, and isolation from each other is the only path toward healing and a healthy relationship. For such people, shunning of the commons is necessary. But if one is forced onto the commons, then a minimal acceptable behavior toward others is necessary when on common ground, as in a truce.

As an example, one technique for anonymous trade between mutually suspicious parties was for the offerers to lay the goods (such as gold) in a clearing (the potential common ground), and then to hide in the forest with the gold in their plain sight, while armed with weapons, in the event of treachery. Thus, the offers could be made to traders. The traders, who bore goods (and who were also armed with weapons), would lay the trade goods in the clearing, and take the gold back with them. This was a mechanism for trading between the Moors and the gold miners of Africa over a millennium ago, and also for trade with Sumatra (the isle of gold) and other islands of Southeast Asia.

Note the structural similarity to the policy of mutually assured destruction during the Cold War era.