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Coordination is the micro-foundation of social order. Smooth interaction requires individuals to attend and respond to one another within the flow of action, each individual continually calibrating actions to correspond to others. While this is taken for granted, the processes by which this occurs warrants examination. We apply philosophical theories of collective intentionality that specify the conditions necessary for two or more people to intend to act together to a sociological analysis of how individuals coordinate action. We treat the dyad as the most basic and prototypical group, examining dyadic encounters across three different social activities: walking together, engaging in sexual intercourse, and making music. We analyze the interplay of verbal and nonverbal communication, caution and risk, and scripted action and spontaneity, that underlies social coordination. Order implies a metaphor of rigidity and control, but social order, a product of interpersonal coordination, requires flexibility and adaptation, ranging from the minutest bodily movements to meta-understandings of local meaning.

When people are acting together, doing whatever it is–crossing a street, running a factory, making dinner, playing a gig–they have to arrive at a way of doing that together, getting their specific activities to mesh in some way so that they can get something done, maybe not what they intended but something. How do they do that? Well, they can rely on things they already know (the canon or some version thereof) or they can make it all up from scratch (free jazz, maybe?), or who knows what in between.