> "Eh, this can also denote synergistic group think or collective creativity."
I think you've missed my point. I was mostly referring to things like meetings, where people typically are trying to reach an agreement (or decision) about something. If those people are from different cultures, then a mismatch can arise where people think they're talking about the same thing but only realise later that things have gone wrong. Even then, people tend towards recriminations, rather than root-causing and realising that their terms mean different things. Take the example from the end of the post itself (where 'skiing' meant different things to both people -- if they hadn't clarified, they'd have parted with vastly different views on what was discussed).
I think you've missed my point. I was mostly referring to things like meetings, where people typically are trying to reach an agreement (or decision) about something. If those people are from different cultures, then a mismatch can arise where people think they're talking about the same thing but only realise later that things have gone wrong. Even then, people tend towards recriminations, rather than root-causing and realising that their terms mean different things. Take the example from the end of the post itself (where 'skiing' meant different things to both people -- if they hadn't clarified, they'd have parted with vastly different views on what was discussed).