In this entry, Shared Understanding is defined as a transdisciplinary creative mental model and reflective practice towards informed conversation and action, that can be adapted towards meaningful collaboration between diverse stakeholders that share different paradigms. Shared understanding, in theory and practice, goes beyond finding a shared or similar narrative around an issue or project, towards facilitating mutual understanding and navigation of the inevitable conflicting differences in worldviews. The model aims to guide and enable reflective and creative processes, such as brain trusts at the intersections, for incubating and crafting transdisciplinary innovations towards social sustainability and regeneration efforts.
Keywords: Shared understanding, Reflective practice, Transdisciplinary innovation, Information ethics, Coevolutionary relationships, Brain trusts
Shared Understanding as a Conceptual Model
Shared understanding is a transdisciplinary creative mental model and reflective practice towards informed conversation and action, that can be adapted towards meaningful collaboration between diverse stakeholders that share different paradigms. Shared understanding, in theory and practice, goes beyond finding a shared narrative around an issue, experience or project, to helping people understand and navigate the inevitable conflicting differences in worldviews. Mutual understanding of these differences can enable creative and reflective processes for incubating and crafting social innovations. Through listening to diverse narratives, creative intelligence can be generated from unusual interactions towards producing transdisciplinary knowledge in ways that are more responsible, ethical and humane (Dyball & Newell, 2014; McConnell et al., 2019; Miller, 2020).
The shared understanding model provides a way to future proof, or minimize the effects of shocks and stresses of future events involving relations between humans, technology and nature, made possible through education and training for responsible and ethical innovation. As shared understanding can generate diverse knowledge and reflective practice, it can lead to insightful consideration of social impacts and consequences of new innovations and technologies. In this way, shared understanding is a transferable mindset and skill set for 21st century (and beyond) career and life navigation; thus, it can be a powerful concept and practice towards making a genuine difference to our quality of life.
Shared understanding, as a way to encourage informed and ethical actions, can help clarify and inform evidence for every stage of a transdisciplinary digital or social innovation project - from problem formulation and insight generation to solutions, action implementation and evaluation. Shared understanding is a meaningful, collaborative and relationships-based way to experience interacting with diverse forms of information and knowledge for enabling positive lifelong learning and wellbeing; for example, it serves as a potential solution to cleaning up the internet, as a major influence on information quality is the transdisciplinary work - bridging humanities, education and information and computer sciences - towards governance for internet safety.
In the shared understanding model, developed from more than a decade of research by Miller (2020), the individual elements contained within shared understanding are always viewed as relational and collaborative experiences, as opposed to separate and isolated. The five key elements of shared understanding are:
1) Knowing the gaps
Knowing the gaps is about being fully conscious of disconnects or divides in societal knowledge and actions which are often invisible to people and societies. The gaps (or blindspots) can become known through visible, often paradoxical tensions at the intersections of societies, and they are revealed and known through collective processes of imagination, creativity, listening and noticing.
2) Bridging the gaps
The process of bridging gaps involves unifying, harmonizing or bringing together two or more different elements within complex adaptive systems. If we remain open and receptive, that collective consciousness will be continuously informing and evolving as we adapt to new circumstances. The gaps could be bridged by collectively considering multiple stakeholders’ perspectives, problem and solution emergence, informed learning and personal change.
3) Informational waves (Infowaves)
Infowaves are forms of vibrational energies that move across multiple boundaries, as opposed to static, meaningful data that stay within established boundaries. Our world consists of everyday experiences that are controversial waves and diverse vibrations. An infowave is a form of information that recognizes a diverse spectrum of energies and synergies, infused with dynamic sustainable and regenerative properties around an infowave. Rather than allowing waves to polarize us further, we can choose to dissect and understand them prior to decision-making. Two ways of sustaining and regenerating infowaves are the collective processes of embodying and curating.
4) Transdisciplinary resonance
A concept is resonant when it clearly connects because it is a familiar similar experience or memory. In transdisciplinary resonance, the meaning of resonance goes beyond what sounds familiar or similar. Here, when something is resonant it is more about having reinterpretations of information - infowaves transferred from different contexts and the ethical considerations of the impacts of these reinterpretations. A reinterpretation, or seeing things in a new light, can give power to an infowave at its birth. We can collectively listen for, intuit and reflect on various resonances of an intersectional project or infowave, particularly the resonances we did not anticipate.
5) Resonant infowaves
The concept of resonant infowaves is a way of bringing together the elements – infowaves plus resonance equals shared understanding. Resonant infowaves essentially involve 4Cs: Creativity, Criticality, Communication and Collaboration (Miller, 2020). Shared understanding is a way of zooming in on shared experiences of the interactions and relationships between infowaves and transdisciplinary resonance (also known as resonant waves) at the intersections (also known as ‘third spaces’), that represent how people from different fields and perspectives are communicating and reflecting on shared responsibilities within social ecologies. Shared understanding can also be viewed as a way to reframe learning as ‘knowing unknowns’ (Toset et al., 2023) to sustain intelligence and wisdom. It is useful to consider the various definitions of shared understanding, how they differ across contexts and how emerging paradigms (such as post-normal science, relational design, social sustainability, machine learning, to name a few) are shaping what it means to create shared understanding.
Shared Understanding as a Research Construct
The emerging body of research into shared understanding has focused on team-based approaches to commit to a project through shared (similar) mental models and values within organizational contexts (Bittner & Leimeister, 2014). This contrasts with the emergence of a broader social-ecological orientation of the term ‘shared understanding’, as referring to the tolerance of and negotiation between multiple and sometimes conflicting perspectives across a single subject, and the creative intelligence generated from these interactions.
As a theoretical research construct, shared understanding and its diverse and fragmented elements do not currently have a strongly unified theoretical foundation. One of the aims of the book Producing shared understanding for digital and social innovation (Miller, 2020), is to work towards strengthening a unified theoretical foundation for shared understanding. The linking of shared understanding to digital and social innovation, social sustainability and regeneration gives shared understanding a practical purpose - to bridge divides in societal knowledge and informed conversations and actions needed now and in the future.
Shared understanding is becoming synonymous with inclusivity and participatory methods such as user engagement to co-produce a shared understanding from the personal perspectives of people living with medical conditions, to empower voiceless or marginalized groups (McConnell et al., 2019) and by bridging divides through analyzing dialogue or conversations. For example, recent empirical research showed that conversational receptiveness - the extent to which parties in disagreement can communicate their willingness to engage with each other’s views – is a practical way of bridging divides in politics, family life or work, that can be learned and can encourage real social change and shared understanding to manifest (Yeomans et al., 2020).
Shared Understanding for Social Sustainability and Regeneration
Shared understanding belongs to a complex adaptive systems mindset which has become inextricably linked with social sustainability, regeneration and social digital innovation. The elements of social sustainability and regeneration that our world needs for ongoing maintenance and healing, can only flourish as we learn how to activate shared understanding as a mindset and culture. A key question for social sustainability and regeneration research and practice is: how can we unify interactions and experiences towards building healthy relationships between people, planet and technologies? Miller (2020) suggests that bridging these often conflicting or fractured relationships for social sustainability centers on developing mindsets and skill sets based on a creative model of producing shared understanding.
Social sustainability and regeneration are now more widely regarded as two complementary approaches to guide humanity’s journey towards addressing the complex and unconventional problems we are facing - environmental, technological, social and economic. Shared understanding has been conceptualized as a design philosophy and enabling cultural concepts for social sustainability and regeneration architects. It is a transdisciplinary form of informed learning and information literacy - being reflectively and critically conscious of ethical information use across different contexts - drawing attention to the centrality of information quality for social sustainability and regeneration goals.
Shared understanding is a mindset and culture essential for social sustainability and regeneration. The world is in the process of reorienting from a priority on competitive self-interest towards focusing on creating healthy ecosystems with more opportunities for people to experience, enable and nurture healthy cultures. Culture is a dynamic process involving social information communicated between individuals and group relations. Cultivating sustainable and regenerative relationships with people, ourselves, nature and artificial technologies, is becoming increasingly important, as reflected in recent research: “There is hope if humanity can craft cultures of sustainability, namely, cultures that highlight and reward the ideas and practices that help reduce our environmental impact while sustaining global human well-being.” (Kashima, 2020, p. 538).
Shared understanding is a mindset and culture based on concepts and practices combining traditional and innovative approaches, which are essential for social sustainability and regeneration to manifest into reality. Shared understanding is pivotal to building the kind of transdisciplinary - industry, research and policy - partnerships and collaborations necessary for enabling the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals 2030 and beyond. Shared understanding needs to be brought to the forefront of these discussions, not just as an add-on to the main components, but as a way of drawing together all of the key elements of social sustainability and regeneration to create and mobilize transdisciplinary problem and solution-based knowledge.
Figure 1 shows how the main elements of shared understanding interrelate and overlap with the elements of social sustainability and regeneration. The key overlap centers on reciprocal coevolutionary relationships, quality of life and healthy connections underpinned by forms of transdisciplinary knowledge construction and meaning making, such as informed learning and resonant infowaves.
Figure 1. How elements of shared understanding interrelate and overlap with the elements of social sustainability and regeneration
Shared Understanding as a Reflective Practice
As future discoveries have and will continue to take place at the intersections of disciplines, a shared understanding of the dynamics of transdisciplinary creativity has also become essential. Ideally, the fusing of human and technological capabilities would enable people to spend less time on routine tasks and to devote more time towards reflectively incubating ideas and practices that are good for the world. It is up to us to integrate these insights, lessons and realizations into our consciousness and actions.
The practice of brain trusts at the intersections (Miller, 2023) can activate ongoing reflective practice for facilitators (i.e., educators, impact producers, knowledge brokers) working within and across a range of educational contexts. For example, brain trusts at the intersections can be used for teaching classes in schools and adult education, and/or collaborating in research-industry teams on topics in ethics and innovation in science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics (STEAM), and information, scientific and media literacies.
Brain trusts are dedicated to nurturing each element of the shared understanding model to facilitate deeper reflections around each process. As the incubation evolves - a constant work in progress - this can inform both conversations, actions or decision making towards social sustainability and regeneration. Brain trusts consist of a blend of critical reflective information capacities and narrative therapies to develop active agencies and to construct rich metacognitive understandings in each participant or group.
Brain trusts are increasingly facilitated at the intersections (for example, ‘third spaces’ such as informal communities outside of formal institutions). For example, Figure 2 is a visual representation of the intersection made up of a range of people who care about co-creating shared understanding at the intersection between social sustainability, social technology, mental health and wellbeing, and knowledge transfer between research, industry, policy and the public. Figure 2 also shows five adaptive elements of the shared understanding model: Know the Gaps, Bridge the Gaps, Infowaves, Transdisciplinary Resonance and Resonant Infowaves, and the methods of Moments, Paradoxes and Dialogues, which can guide each brain trust group’s discussion questions, activities and reflections.
Figure 2. Brain trusts at the intersections can activate the shared understanding model
Conclusion
This entry has defined shared understanding as a conceptual model, research construct, and reflective practice, mindset and culture based on concepts and practices combining traditional and innovative approaches, which are essential for social sustainability and regeneration to manifest into reality. Shared understanding is pivotal to building the kind of transdisciplinary - industry, research and policy - partnerships and collaborations necessary for enabling the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals 2030 and beyond. Shared understanding needs to be brought to the forefront of these discussions, not just as an add-on to the main components, but as a way of drawing together all of the key elements of social sustainability and regeneration to create and mobilize transdisciplinary problem and solution-based knowledge. There is an important need for further research into shared understanding as a transdisciplinary concept and practice, from the broader perspectives of social-ecological and complex adaptive systems, towards social innovation, sustainability and regeneration efforts.
Photo ‘Neighborhood Sharing Center’ by Kelly Ziesenis Carter
References
Dyball, R., & Newell, B. (2014). Understanding human ecology: A systems approach to sustainability. Routledge.
Bittner, E. A. C., & Leimeister, J. M. (2014). Creating shared understanding in heterogeneous work groups: Why it matters and how to achieve it. Journal of Management Information Systems, 31(1), 111-144.
Kashima, Y. (2020). Cultural dynamics for sustainability: How can humanity craft cultures of sustainability? Current Directions in Psychological Science, 29(6), 538-544.
McConnell, T., Sturm, T., Stevenson, M., McCorry, N., Donnelly, M., Taylor, B. J., & Best, P. (2019). Co-producing a shared understanding and definition of empowerment with people with dementia. Research Involvement and Engagement, 5, 1-11.
Miller, F. (2020) Producing shared understanding for digital and social innovation: Bridging divides with transdisciplinary information experience concepts and methods. Palgrave Macmillan.
Miller, F. (2023). The shared understanding playbook: A companion guide to facilitating informed conversations and action. HC Publishing.
Toset, A. S., Torkkola, S., & Parviainen, J. (2023). Non-knowledge in medical practices: Approaching the uses of social media in healthcare from an epistemological perspective. Journal of Digital Social Research, 5(1), 70-89.
Yeomans, M., Minson, J., Collins, H., Chen, F., & Gino, F. (2020). Conversational receptiveness: Improving engagement with opposing views. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 160, 131-148.