The problem with common sense is that it operates on implicit expectations. It assumes that shared context is strong enough to fill knowledge gaps, or that problems that do crop up are either too small to bother with or can be dealt with “later”.
That might work for a tight ops team in which expected conduct gets reinforced daily and informally. However, as teams grow and new tools are adopted, shared assumptions break down, and “common sense” can’t keep up. An influx of people or ideas isn’t the issue — having no reliable structure and repeatable procedures to support them is.
In this article, we’ll take a look at what consequences relying on common sense leads to when applied to growing headcount, tools, or workflows. More importantly, it also covers structured alternatives that leave no room for guesswork.
The Escalating Risks of the Common Sense Approach
When used by small teams for familiar scenarios, common sense affords flexibility. Here’s why this approach breaks down at scale, across four key points of failure.
Inconsistency
How many times have you discussed the proper way to handle a request only to realize that you and a colleague have perfectly valid but different approaches? This is easy to smooth over in a tight-knit team, though it becomes a problem down the line.
A lack of formal procedures and standards breeds guesswork. And, inevitably, it leads to meetings where arguing over who’s got the right idea replaces actual coordination.
Rushed decisions
Scaling up inevitably comes with increased pressure. The volume of requests and tickets goes up, you need to coordinate with more teams, and may need to adopt new tools. There’s no time for consistent fixes and addressing the underlying causes, so you implement workarounds that will have to hold until later. Except “later” never comes.
Defaulting to the most convenient solutions is another common-sense staple. This can quickly become a security and compliance issue. When everything is a rush job, it’s tempting to have an unsanctioned AI tool help out without realizing that the sensitive information you feed it could easily leak.
No clear guidelines for new hires
Ironically, the problems new hires face can be the most obvious sign of existing structural shortcomings. When onboarding runs on common sense logic, new hires might get one answer from the person they’re shadowing and a completely different one from someone else a week later. And since proper procedure isn’t set, there’s no documentation for them to look up.
Institutional knowledge isn’t something one picks up in a few days, so newcomers who have to wing it remain underutilized longer. Worse yet, a core part of that knowledge may suddenly vanish with an old hand who’s switching jobs or retiring.
Tool sprawl
Common sense dictates using the right tool for the job. Except that tool might not satisfy the needs of a growing team. Or you’re paying license fees for multiple tools whose features overlap because different teams are doing their own thing. Add to that the fact that ownership might not be clearly defined, and you’ve got a situation where optimization becomes much harder than it needs to be.
Better Alternative to Consider
If the above examples make anything clear, it’s that “common sense” actually sounds a lot more like individual judgment calls that happen to work in small-scale environments. Here are four reliable, repeatable processes that support growth better.
Setting standards and defaults
Larger teams can maintain smaller ones’ efficiency more reliably if they are in a position to make predictable decisions consistently. Standardization enables this by codifying the judgment calls with the best track records. Making the optimal course of action the default reduces both inconsistencies and the likelihood of making rash judgment calls under pressure.
Automation
Ensuring that people follow the correct steps only goes so far. Follow it up by minimizing rote tasks and manual judgment calls that would cause errors and waste time. Account provisioning, system checks, and routine performance reports are all useful technology advice. Still, any other rules-based or high-volume tasks and actions prone to human error would benefit as much from automation.
App and software vetting
All the tools your teams use need to meet security and compliance standards, not just current operational needs. That might mean vetting individual tools, making sure that they’re a good fit for existing systems and their expansion, while also satisfying the above concerns.
It can also mean adding tools that monitor activity, enforce rules, and flag potential issues. Some AI in workplaces can be a good example. They provide safeguards against accidental data exposure while letting team members use different models without having to resort to shadow AI.
Easily accessible and transferable knowledge
Institutional knowledge isn’t something to be hoarded, and seasoned employees shouldn’t be the only ones to have unrestricted access to it. Replace scattered tribalism with a central wiki that benefits everybody. This will make onboarding quicker and knowledge retention resilient to employee turnover while letting anyone look up the proper procedure at any time.
Conclusion
Scaling up personnel and processes doesn’t play well with uncertainty. Yet that’s just what continuing to follow the common sense approach escalates in such situations. Now that you have a clearer idea of what it likely leads to, it’s prudent to enact preemptive measures or timely course correction for maintaining growing operations’ efficiency and resilience.
