Organizational sensemaking is a fundamental process through which individuals and groups within an organization interpret ambiguous, equivocal, or confusing events and situations to create shared understanding and guide action.
It’s not about discovering objective truth, but rather about constructing plausible interpretations that allow people to navigate complexity and coordinate their behavior.
At its core, sensemaking emphasizes that organizations are not static structures but are constantly being “organized” through the ongoing efforts of their members to make sense of their experiences. This perspective shifts the focus from decision-making as the primary driver of organizational life to the way meaning is created and negotiated.
Key Concepts and Theories
Several key ideas underpin the concept of organizational sensemaking:
- Enactment: Organizations actively create the environments they operate in through their interpretations and actions. What seems like an external reality is often a product of the organization’s collective sensemaking.
- Equivocality: Organizations often face situations with multiple possible interpretations. Sensemaking is the process of reducing this equivocality by developing plausible narratives or frameworks.
- Retrospection: Sensemaking is often a retrospective process. People make sense of events by looking back, extracting cues, and constructing explanations that rationalize what they have done or are doing.
- Social Construction of Reality: Sensemaking highlights how organizational reality is socially constructed through interactions, conversations, and shared experiences.
- Identity: The process of making sense is deeply tied to identity. Individuals and groups create and maintain their sense of self through the stories they tell and the meanings they attribute to events.
- Action and Interpretation: Sensemaking involves an interplay between action and interpretation. Actions can precede understanding, and the consequences of actions provide further cues for sensemaking.
Karl Weick is widely recognized as the foundational figure in the field of organizational sensemaking. His seminal work, “The Social Psychology of Organizing,” and later “Sensemaking in Organizations,” laid the groundwork for understanding organizing as an activity of continuous meaning-making.
Other theoretical developments include:
- Sensegiving: This refers to the efforts by leaders or influential individuals to shape others’ interpretations and understandings towards a preferred outcome.
- Multifaceted Sensemaking (MSM) Theory: This more recent development outlines a multi-stage process that integrates cognitive, emotional, and social elements in sensemaking.
How Sensemaking Unfolds in Organizations?
Sensemaking typically involves several interconnected phases:
- Discovery/Noticing: Individuals or groups encounter cues or stimuli from their environment that signal something noteworthy or unexpected.
- Extraction: Relevant cues are identified and “bracketed” from the flow of experience.
- Enactment: These cues are interpreted and articulated, often through language, to create a preliminary understanding or “map” of the situation. This is where the organization begins to “make” its environment.
- Social Interaction: Sensemaking is largely a social process. Individuals discuss, debate, and negotiate interpretations with others, refining their understanding through dialogue.
- Selection/Interpretation: Multiple possible interpretations are considered, and a “plausible” account is selected. This account needs to be reasonable and coherent.
- Retention/Action: The plausible account becomes a basis for action. This action, in turn, shapes the environment, potentially creating new cues that trigger further sensemaking.
Examples of Organizational Sensemaking
Responding to a Crisis: During a natural disaster or a major organizational failure (like the Mann Gulch disaster studied by Weick), employees engage in sensemaking to understand what happened, why it happened, and how to move forward. This often involves piecing together fragmented information and relying on shared experiences.
Adapting to Technological Change: When new technologies like Generative AI are introduced, organizations must make sense of their implications. Employees might use chatbots as collaborators or facilitators to interpret information, leading to new ways of understanding and working.
Navigating Strategic Shifts: When an organization embarks on a significant strategic change, leaders engage in “sensegiving” to shape employees’ understanding of the new direction. Simultaneously, employees engage in their own sensemaking to reconcile the new strategy with their existing beliefs and experiences.
Onboarding New Employees: New hires constantly engage in sensemaking to understand the unwritten rules, norms, and culture of an organization. They observe interactions, listen to stories, and ask questions to build a plausible picture of how things work.
Dealing with Ambiguous Market Trends: In rapidly changing markets, organizations continuously scan for cues, interpret their meaning, and develop strategies based on these interpretations, constantly refining their understanding as the market evolves.
In essence, organizational sensemaking is a vital, dynamic process that underpins how organizations function, adapt, and survive in an ever-changing world. It’s about how we collectively figure out “what’s going on” and “what should we do about it.”