Align central terms before cooperating in a crisis

Suppose two organizations agree to support each other with situation information during an emergency. One side means a verified, assessed situation report produced by a fixed role; the other means a first collection of unverified reports. In this fictional example, both use the same word while expecting different things. The mismatch surfaces when the information is first needed.

Terms carry established procedures, responsibilities, and expectations within organizations. Before agreeing to work together, the partners should identify which terms will shape that work — for instance situation information, escalation, or support. For that small set it suffices to record which document or process each side means, who produces it, and what the recipient may conclude from it.

I have encountered differences in terminology in my own work. In our published working paper “Bewertung von organisationaler Krisen-Resilienz anhand des Resilienzrisikoreifegrades” (Rico Kerstan and André Röhl, NBS Northern Business School, No. 1/2025) we require a conceptual focus on organizational crisis resilience before examining assessment models. The very term resilience, in our account, is shaped by debates in physics, psychology, and ecosystem research. Even within one scholarly discussion, the applicable understanding has to be fixed first.

I transfer this finding to cross-organizational preparation: partners with similar mandates can still belong to different professional traditions. Alignment is not glossary work for its own sake but preparation of a specific cooperation. For each central term, three entries suffice: the document or process meant, the role that produces it, and the consequence the recipient may draw.

A joint exercise can test the alignment at one point, such as the first shared situation display. If the transmitted document matches the expectation, the partners share the same understanding. If not, the deviation is a finding of the exercise review, not a personal misunderstanding.

Anyone planning joint preparation should start with the terms needed in the first hour of cooperation. The remaining vocabulary can be clarified as the work proceeds, once these initial meanings have been agreed.