ABSTRACT
It has been argued that the intellectual task of gaining access to the conceptual world of others and the more practical task of conversing with them, should be accepted as interdependent ones. The intellectual task may place greater emphasis upon understanding meaning and the practical task may see its broader purpose in the actual improvement of communication; yet, there is a sense today that we are not dealing with an equation of either intellectual or practical tasks, but rather an equation of both intellectual and practical tasks. Much communication technology developed in this century has been adopted and adapted to improve the basic strategies of coordination. The concept of mutual adjustment emphasizes the way in which consensus and commitment are as much the outcome of everyday human interaction as they are the result of centrally coordinated communication strategies. People should not underestimate the part played by the formal networks of information and communication in the formation of consensus and commitment.
