Nurturing Shared Understanding in an age of rapid change and confusion
Our world is in crisis. A perfect storm of interconnected challenges threatens our planet, our societies, and our future. Climate change, population transitions, water instability, disinformation, and technological disruption converge and piggyback on each other; they are intertwined threads in a rapidly morphing and increasingly unfamiliar world. Yet, as the “wicked problems” get nastier, more entrenched and pervasive, we remain at a standstill. The consequences of inaction are too dire to contemplate.
We've reached a pivotal junction. Faced with unprecedented complexity and change, we must find ways to overcome our collective stagnation. Within this chaos, confusion, and uncertainty lies the potential for extraordinary transformation. To navigate the turbulence, we must embrace a new era of alignment and innovation.
Collective paralysis: knowing too much (about too little)
We live in an era marked by an unprecedented spike in knowledge production. A vast ecosystem of global and national bodies, universities, think tanks, private enterprises, advocacy groups, and community-led initiatives is actively generating ideas and crafting diverse solutions to our world's challenges. This rich intellectual bounty holds immense potential for addressing complex problems.
A paradoxical Achilles' heel undermines our fertile harvest of knowledge: hyperspecialization. As our understanding deepens, fields of study fragment into increasingly narrow niches. Consider neuroscience, which didn't even exist 60 years ago. Technological advancements have led to a proliferation of subfields such as computational neuroscience, cognitive neuroscience, optogenetics, cellular neuroscience, behavioral neuroscience, and so on. Each subfield and each scientist within it has a profound understanding of one Lilliputian aspect of the brain. Clearly, hyperspecialization yields groundbreaking insights and is necessary for complex and emergent products and processes that demand expertise beyond the reach of any single person. However, it simultaneously hinders our ability to grasp the interconnected nature of challenges and agree on the best way forward.
Wicked problems demand a broad, multisystem approach, yet hyperspecialization fosters a myopic view. It can limit our ability to see the "big picture." Experts, deeply immersed in their respective silos, may struggle to translate their implications, communicate and cooperate effectively across the boundaries of their influence. This can lead to a neglect of systemic connections, making it difficult to identify root causes and anticipate unintended consequences.
There are well-known examples of what happens when specialized echo chambers work in isolation. For instance, the brand new Boeing 737 Max began to drop out of the sky because changes made by engineers to the flight control system (MCAS) were not adequately communicated to pilots, leading to a lack of understanding about the control system's behavior. Similarly, during the Challenger disaster, engineers were laser-focused on the functionality of O-rings at specific temperatures. They prioritized their performance within a narrow range, leading to a dangerous oversight: the impact of cold weather on these critical seals. Communication with meteorologists initially dismissed as outside their immediate area of expertise, could have revealed a potential catastrophe that was waiting to happen.
Flight mechanics are exceptionally complex, yet they pale compared to the intricate and formidable challenges we now confront. When grappling with themes of global resonance—those with multifaceted causes and impacts such as poverty, social inequality, or the rise of AI—expertise within a single niche or knowledge domain, even when combined with others in similar fields, offers an exceptionally limited perspective. As George Bernard Shaw famously remarked about economists, "If all economists were laid end to end, they would not reach a conclusion," a sentiment that could also be applied to many compartmentalized fields of understanding.
“A way of seeing is also a way of not seeing. ”
Specializations also encourage cultures of thinking; the way we frame the problem shapes the solutions we propose. Ask a New Keynesian macroeconomist about the 2008 global financial crisis, an organizational sociologist, or someone who lost their home—each perspective will be vastly different and probably contradictory. Limited focus and fragmented knowledge hinder our ability to develop effective ideas to tackle problems that have global reach.
The disconnect between specialized knowledge and the ability to systematically track complexity highlights the difficulty in deciding the best course to take. It leaves us akin to spending time analyzing and arguing about the value and influences of the different ingredients when the entire dish remains a mess.
We need a new framework for understanding that departs from past attempts. One that doesn't seek to force-fit knowledge into a rigid, homogenized whole through stifling groupthink. Nor one that constricts innovation through a singular, unified narrative that demands unwavering and unquestioning support from everyone.
It can also no longer be a simple getting-to-know-you session within the diversity of ideas. That doesn’t work. We once hoped that if we got psychologists to collaborate with mathematicians or economists, they would garner fresh insights to refine their different sets of understandings. The fact that we're “far off track” in achieving the UN's Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 underscores this approach´s inadequacies.
To fully realize the potential of our knowledge-rich era, we must find a balance between specialized depth and the capacity for systems-level thinking. This requires cultivating a culture of knowledge translation and developing tools and frameworks that integrate diverse perspectives.
A new way to build shared understanding
Our ideas, like lanterns flickering on a vast sea, offer fleeting glimpses of promise but lack the connection needed to illuminate lasting breakthroughs.
The metaphor of the expanding universe aptly captures our predicament. While our collective knowledge about the world and ourselves has undergone explosive growth, the crucial connections that illuminate understanding, convergence and foster connection—the "bright sparks"—seem to be diverging further and further apart.
Stuck in our isolated outposts and exposed to the relentless forces of change, the need for shared understanding has become crucial. Dominique Jaurola, futurist and Hunome CEO, explains:
“We need new ways in which humanity can integrate its thinking to ensure that we do not wait for a crisis to happen before we come to a shared understanding.”
Jaurola´s perspective reflects a wider reassessment of how knowledge and collective understandings are generated and deployed. The cumbersome, though powerful, term “transdisciplinary understanding” may offer a way forward.
Transdisciplinarity envisions a shared way of seeing—a collectively developed multidimensional lens accessible to everyone—that allows us to advance with our diverse goals, viewpoints, and aspirations. Resilient and broad understanding thrives not within the confines of our lonely outposts but in the dynamic intersections between, across, and beyond them. It grows in the connection within a vast expanse of perspectives.
It draws inspiration from complexity and change, acknowledging the multiple layers of reality, divergent meanings, and diverse perceptions that shape our understanding. A common foundation and an alignment of purpose can be built through encounters and deliberations by diverse people across different contexts and with other ways of knowing.
Through dialogue and purposeful learning from diverse voices, we can identify blind spots and gaps in our understanding. Then, by engaging in imaginative exploration and reflection, we can bridge these gaps, develop a more cohesive picture and unlock unexplored avenues of insight.
Productive friction is at the heart of sensemaking. It arises from the clash of ideas and fragmented knowledge systems across diverse disciplines, experiences, and backgrounds. While multiple approaches coexist, their interaction and feedback enhance one another. This process compels individuals to confront differences, reflect on their implications, and seek connections across varied experiences, fostering novel insights, divergent thinking, and ingenuity.
By integrating diverse contexts, ways of knowing, and expertise, we can drive robust, sustainable, and lasting innovation across various domains, including governance, health, community development, business, and environmental stewardship. This shared understanding is essential for accelerating implementation and enhancing impact.
“Shared understanding is about how people from different fields and perspectives are communicating, curating, embodying, intuiting and reflecting on shared responsibilities.”
Developing shared understanding in this way disrupts the limitations and hierarchical division of disciplinary silos, ideologies, and dominant ways of knowing. All too often, power dynamics infuse our collective understanding, with some knowledge fields in society, an organization, and more recently, search engines privileged with monopolizing what is valued, influential and reproduced. This ensures the systemic marginalization and exclusion of ideas and visions that diverge from the norm. That way is stagnation.
The shared understanding we need requires active and participatory co-creation by diverse people in authentic contexts. Beyond the discussions of specialists in different fields, it values and incorporates the voices, knowledge, and perceptions of those experiencing a problem. Direct experience ties understanding to real-world needs and the human ecosystems impacted. This collective effort depends on the voices and insights of those most affected by global challenges—in essence, all of us.
Building shared understanding entails a very human personal journey, including boundary crossing into novel places, encountering differences and ‘unlearning’ assumptions previously held as ‘true’. Kids likely adopt this approach naturally as they “play, build, invent, create, question, design and explore to make sense of the people, places, things and events in their lives.”
Mutual understanding acts as a compass. It guides us through disagreements and incubates an environment ripe for reflection, ideation and creative problem-solving. It can excite innovation and forge different, more comprehensive ways to tackle long-standing and emerging challenges. This is crucial because the complex, interconnected systems we grapple with constantly test our decision-making abilities. It fuels our determination to break free from the cycle of ineffective, isolated and harmful choices we continue to make.
Shared understanding helps societies, groups, organizations, businesses, and individuals to navigate wicked problems and unprecedented societal shifts with greater resilience and sustainability. Earlier this year, the UN put its weight behind this kind of collective sensemaking to rapidly promote game-changing ideas:
A game changer is a method, an approach, a cooperation strategy, capacity development activity, or agreement that will transform the way we think, do business, plan and implement policies, or govern at local, regional and global levels. A game changer is a catalyser to becoming more resilient to water, climate, food and energy crises, as well as to economic, ecological, social and political changes. Ultimately, the goal is the enhancement of cooperation to leverage benefits across actors, sectors and scales, and serves as means for sustainable development.”
Building this collective understanding is a continuous, interactive, and participatory process. The path forward lies in courageous and creative choices grounded in the best aspects of diverse perspectives. Decisions need to be made, and not everyone within a collective will agree on a course of action. However, the inclusion and sustained articulation of divergent viewpoints ensures that these are considered, the rationale is transparent, and any downstream harms can be mitigated. This is the paradigm shift we need.
The practical pain points of shared understanding: “Nothing changes.”
Passivity and inaction feature in many attempts at collective sensemakingThe willingness to build shared understanding is there. Organizations like the UN, the WHO, the Red Cross and the World Economic Forum, as well as industry associations, trade bodies, national health services, charities, NGOs, community groups and small businesses, realize the need.
These diverse entities aspire to a shared understanding to help them strategize more effectively, coordinate efforts, and pool resources. With a common multidimensional foundation, they could innovate together, tackle complex global and local challenges, and work towards shared goals by integrating diverse perspectives and expertise. Without it, they struggle to align their actions, reduce inefficiencies, and create durable strategies to address the issues they face.
The stumbling block is the logistics—they are a nightmare. Most of the work is administrative. It's a time sink, a money pit, and often maddeningly slow. Managing and coordinating a diverse group of divergent personalities, as anyone who remembers the frazzled drama teacher during school play rehearsals can attest, demands a unique blend of skills and patience.
We could imagine some benign dictator extracting the diversity of stakeholders and then locking them in a room for months or years until they find common ground and innovative solutions. However, going down that route would probably upset a few human rights treaties. We’ve tended to rely on what we've always done: ad hoc, time-bound small research centers or working groups within larger business-as-usual universities or organizations or sporadic symposiums, forums, conferences, or workshops.
True, multistakeholder conferences and roundtables on wicked problems are fantastic networking opportunities, especially when recreational and travel expenses are covered. Whether they really build shared understanding or accelerate game-changing ideas as envisaged above is debatable.
Often, they involve select and institutionally prestigious Keynote speakers performing PowerPoint karaoke, summarizing their research and alluding to future discoveries in the hope of securing future funding or prestige. Q&As are appendaged to the end of the sessions as a participatory formality. Unfacilitated group discussions diverge into circularity and misunderstanding. The room erupts in a cacophony of the same tired arguments championed by those who always seem to have access to the microphone. Often, those sitting on the edges, invited as an inclusive afterthought, are where the insights may simmer, but these remain unheard. After a refreshment break, the procedure begins again with a new expert. By the end of the day, everyone's exhausted and ready for a cup of tea and lie down.
The biggest pain point is that after all the complementary bagels, unsustainable plastic bottles of water, and the long journey home, nothing happens and nothing changes.
When Zoom rode on the sneezes of the pandemic, we got used to the idea of virtual gatherings. Suddenly, no matter where we were, we could attend virtual gatherings on anything and everything. The bad habits of the past quickly reared their ugly heads. The working cultures held steadfast. The anxiety-inducing "breakout room" assignments and the persistent one-speaker format stifled meaningful interaction. Learning how to push mute became the first rule of any meeting.
Of course, these examples are tongue-in-cheek, but my point is that this format is hardly conducive to building sustainable shared understanding. Thankfully, there are now much better ways to overcome some of the core challenges of collective sensemaking.
How to move from "nothing happened" to "everything changed"
Digital technology has unleashed new possibilities for cooperation and collective action. However, these tools and platforms are only as effective as their design and implementation. Many dominant players should carry health warnings. The ingrained habits they cultivate can create social harms that are difficult to untangle.
When trying to leverage the collective power of minds, we need to be selective about the tools we use. Most digital technologies are ill-suited for tackling complex, context-dependent challenges that defy algorithmic or linear approaches. While platforms like Miro and Mural offer some value in helping small groups visualize and collaborate on shared projects, a more sustainable and transformative approach is urgently needed.
Technology designed to address the pain points in building shared understanding would be immensely beneficial. By facilitating a participatory structure and the diverse contributions from experts and non-experts, such tools can unlock collective intelligence and lead to innovations for complex, multi-stakeholder problems.
Digital tools designed to foster shared understanding are still largely unexplored territory. However,, the collective sensemaking platform, Hunome exemplifies the potential. Dominique Jaurola, founder of Hunome, explains the motivation behind the platform:
"We provide a product that empowers businesses and organizations of all stripes to make sense of change. This change is invariably systemic and connects with a multitude of perspectives. Deliberating in isolation from the world's viewpoints is perilous. We risk falling behind on what humanity, both experts and everyday people, are seeking and what truly matters – ultimately leaving gaping holes in understanding that can cripple decision-making."
Jaurola and her team designed Hunome to overcome the limitations of traditional collective sensemaking: geographical chasms, technological barriers, financial and administrative burdens, institutional amnesia, and the superficial, fragmented nature of many physical and virtual gatherings dedicated to the development of ´game-changing´ ideas. In contrast, the platform is responsive to co-creating a shared understanding. It facilitates this process without the hefty price tag, risk or the months of administrative headaches often associated with traditional approaches.
It achieves this through networks of multidimensional collective mind maps called SparkMaps. These showcase the emerging understanding within a group. Visually representing the connections and questions between ideas, SparkMaps allow participants to see the bigger picture and understand how different ideas interrelate. A recent Humanation on global population transitions exemplifies how the platform supports deliberation.
SparkMap Insights page highlighting how diverse perspectives and ways of knowing converge to build shared understanding
SparkMaps visualize the structure of discussions and the content of ideas, showcasing the relationships and interactions between them. They visually capture the deliberation process, the reasoning behind it, and the path to subsequent decision-making. This includes the logic and coherence of the discussion, as well as the areas of agreement and disagreement. Because of the Spark Maps' clear overview, participants can discover knowledge gaps and identify areas where bottlenecks may exist. This transparency allows for the targeted inclusion of additional expertise or diverse voices, enriching the overall understanding and potential solutions.
Hunome preserves group memory, allowing understanding to be continuously reviewed and refined in light of new information or events. As new ideas and contributors join, the platform evolves and develops more robust insights. SparkMaps ensure that these insights are comprehensive and considerate of multiple perspectives.
The platform’s non-hierarchical structure guarantees that voices often marginalized or excluded in traditional discussions are heard and actively contribute. Through democratic co-creation, ideas that resonate most with participants gain traction. While not everyone will agree, and only some ideas will provide a way forward, decision-makers are compelled to engage with and reflect on divergent perspectives. This ensures that when they commit to action, they do so with a nuanced understanding of existing disagreements.
Hunome facilitates a paradigm shift in addressing complex challenges. Despite its apparent simplicity, it offers a structured framework that supports deep and enduring deliberation. The way it organizes and connects ideas helps identify patterns and innovative solutions more effectively.
With Hunome, we move beyond the constraints of traditional methods, empowering individuals and teams with collective intelligence for informed decision-making. This approach makes group activities more sustainable, future-focused, and multi-dimensional. Our world needs this approach, and so do we
