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[Sensemaking in Organizations (Foundations for Organizational Science)] [Author: Weick, Karl E.] [July, 1995]
Finalist for the George Terry Award sponsored by the Academy of Management "This lovely and important book is the clearest, most complete, and interesting statement of sensemaking in organizations available. . . . It will have an impact on both new and experienced scholars." --Bob Sutton, Stanford University "Weick is artful. He masterfully constructs the sensemaking theoretical framework so that it can be better understood by the general scholar and in the process provides the reader with the sensemaking experience." --Kathleen Sutcliffe, University of Minnesota The teaching of organization theory and the conduct of organizational research have been dominated by a focus on decision making and the conception of strategic rationality. The rational model, however, ignores the inherent complexity and ambiguity of real-world organizations and their environments. Karl E. Weick's new landmark volume, Sensemaking in Organizations, highlights how the "sensemaking" process--the creation of reality as an ongoing accomplishment that takes form when people make retrospective sense of the situations in which they find themselves--shapes organizational structure and behavior. Some of the topics Weick thoroughly covers are the concept, uniqueness, historical roots, varieties and occasions, general properties, and the future of sensemaking research and practice. Expertly written, Sensemaking in Organizations is the volume that students, scholars, and professors of organization and management studies must have.
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First published May 1, 1995
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511 people want to read
About the author
Karl E. Weick
14 books34 followersAmerican organizational theorist who introduced the concepts of "loose coupling", "mindfulness", and "sensemaking" into organizational studies. He is the Rensis Likert Distinguished University Professor at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
June 17, 2014
I borrowed this one from the library, but I will definetively want to have my own copy soon. As a note for myself, the more interesting passages are reproduced below:
p4:
The concept of sensemaking is well named because, literally, it means the making of sense. When people put stimuli intro frameworks, this enables them to comprehend, understand, extrapolate and predict. [And therefore, plan and act!]
p5:
Ring and Rands (1989) define sensemaking as "a process in which individuals develop cognitive maps of their environment" (p342)
p9:
in real-workd practice problems do not present themselves to the practitioners as givens. They must be constructed from the materials of problematic situations which are puzzling, troubling and uncertain. In order to convert a problematic situation to a problem, a practitioner must do certain kind of work. He must make sense of an uncertain situation that initially makes no sense.
p13:
Sensemaking is clearly about an activity or a process, whereas interpretation can be a process but is as likely to describe a product. It is common to hear that someone made "an interpretation" but we seldom hear that someone made "a sensemaking". We hear instead that people make sense of something, but even then, the activity rather than the outcome is in the foreground.
Even when interpretation is treated as a process, the implied nature of the process is different. The act of interpreting implies that something is there, a text in the workd waiting to be discovered or approximated. Sensemaking, however, is less about discovery than it is about invention.
p15:
The Western and the Japanese man mean something different when thay talk of "making a decision". In the west, all the emphasis is on the answer to the question...To the Japanese, however, the important element in decision making is defining the question. The important and crucial steps are to decide wheter there is a need for a decision and what the decision is about.
[For some organization in Milton Keynes, EVs were not even a question, for others they were a question about costs and performance, and for yet another subset they were about new opportunities, markets and competitive advantages. ] [It all depends on who I am and what I am trying to achieve. It also depends on what I think is expected of me. Sensemaking is grounded in identity construction. Se Ring and Van de Ven 1989, p 180]
[Organizational life is not fully captured by the metaphor of reading texts, as discussed by Czarniawzka-Joerges 1992, p253-254] the text metaphor implies that meaning already exists and is waiting to be found rather than it awaits construction that might not happen or might go awry, and suggests a unity that is untenable when there are subuniverses of meaning.
p35
People who stody sensemaking oscillate ontologically because this is what helps them understand the actions of people in everyday life who could care less about ontology...If people have multiple identities and deal with multiple realities, why should we expect them to be ontological purists? To do so is to limit their capability for sensemaking. More likely is the posibility that over time people will act like interpretivists, functionalists, radical humanists, and radical structuralists.
P37:
There are many ways in which actioin can affect meaning other than by producuing visible consequences in the world...the act that never gets done, gets done too late, gets dropped too soon, or for which time never seems right is seldom a senseless act. More often, its meaning seems all too clear. [e.g., non-adoption or timid adoption of EVs or other innovations.]
57:
Having an accurate environmental map may be less important than having some map that brings order to the world and prompts action.
Even if accuracy were important, executives seldom produce it. from the standpoint of sensemaking , that is no big problem. The strength of sensemaking as a perspective derives from the fact that it does not rely on accuracy and its model is not object perception. Instead, sensemaking is about plausibility, pragmatics, coherence, reasonableness, creation, invention and instrumentality.
P 61
filtered information is less accurate but, if the filtering is effective, more understandable (Starbuck and Milliken 1988, p41)
p 121:
To identify stimuli properly and to select adequate responses, organizations map their environments and constitute theories of action which organizations elaborate and refine as new sitations are encountered (Hedberg 1981, p7) The references to the act of mapping and to a map as a product are important because they suggest that the growing interest in cognitive maps (e.g. Huff 1990) and cause maps (Voyer and Faulkner 1989) has relevance for problems of sensemaking. Maps, knowledge structures (Walsh, Henderson and Deighton, 1988) and mental models (e.g., Barr, Stimpert and Huff, 1992) all contain substance that provides a meaningful frame that facilitates meaningful noticing.
P 123
For Argyris, a crucial problem in effective action is that the theories of action people actually use may differ from the theories of action they espouse. This potential split carries the cautionary message for students of sensemaking that observations of action (Silverman, 1970) are crucial to offset the possibility that what people tell us about their theories of sensemaking has limited relevance to how they function... Argyris (1976) also observed that theories-in-use produce enactive sense-making:
...Every theory-in-use is a self-fulfilling prophecy to some extent. we construct the reality of our behavioral worlds through the same process by which we construct our theories-in-use. Theory building is reality building, not only because our theories in use help to determine what we perceive of the behavioral world, but also because our theories-in-use determine our actions, which in turn help to determine the characteristics of the behavioral world, which in turn feed into our theories in use. (pp 11-12)
[This interrelatedness of theory-building and reality-building is very relevant within the malleable space of a strategic niche. ]
p 124
Traditions (Shils, 1981) provide some of the most interesting content for sensemaking as well as a point of linkage with institutional theory (Pfeffer, 1982, p 239). We understand tradition to mean something that was created, was performed or believed in the past, or believed to have existed or to have been performed or believed in the past, and that has been or is being handed down or transmitted from one generation to the next...For something to qualify as a tradition, a pattern must be transmitted at least twice, over three generations. Researchers should perk up when reading that list because, in an age of mergers, acquisitions, takeovers, reorganizations and downsizing, there may no longer be such a thing as "generations". We may all be first-generation members, all the time, and over and over. There may be still quasi-generations, but they are defined less by longevity than by history of assignments. The length of time it takes to be viewed as "seasoned" and "elder" may, in the nanosecond nineties, have shrunk to weeks or days.
p 126
Individuals, groups and organizations that work hard at articulating their evanescent actions create a "tradition of conduct". The content of such a tradition consists of images and beliefs that capture "the patterns which guide actions, the ends sought, the conceptions of appropriate and effective means to attain those ends, the structures which result from and are maintained by those actions" (Shils, 1981, p 25) These are content resources for sensemaking made available by traditions. And they can vary widely in the ease with which they allow people to re-accomplish actions that embody lessons learned by earlier generations.
[So... action that is not grounded in tradition becomes little more than trial and error, but action that is too bound by tradition creates a relative disadvantage relative to more imaginative, adaptable competitors.]
Some references to chase:
Ring and Rands, 1989 - The Minnesota studies
Ring and Van de Ven, 1989 - The Minnesota studies
Czarniawzka-Joerges, 1992 - Exploring complex organizations
Starbuck and Milliken, 1988 - The executive effect. concepts and methods for studying top managers
Hedberg, 1981 - How organizations learn and unlearn
Huff, 1990 - Mapping strategic thought
Voyer and Faulkner, 1989 - Organizational cognition in a jazz ensemble ?
Walsh, Henderson and Deighton, 1988 - negotiated belief structures and decision performance
Barr, Stimpert and Huff, 1992 - cognitive change, strategic action and organizational renewal
Silverman, 1970 - The theory of Organizations
Argyris, 1976 - Increasing leadership effectiveness
Shils, 1981 - Tradition
Pfeffer, 1982 - Power in Organizations
p4:
The concept of sensemaking is well named because, literally, it means the making of sense. When people put stimuli intro frameworks, this enables them to comprehend, understand, extrapolate and predict. [And therefore, plan and act!]
p5:
Ring and Rands (1989) define sensemaking as "a process in which individuals develop cognitive maps of their environment" (p342)
p9:
in real-workd practice problems do not present themselves to the practitioners as givens. They must be constructed from the materials of problematic situations which are puzzling, troubling and uncertain. In order to convert a problematic situation to a problem, a practitioner must do certain kind of work. He must make sense of an uncertain situation that initially makes no sense.
p13:
Sensemaking is clearly about an activity or a process, whereas interpretation can be a process but is as likely to describe a product. It is common to hear that someone made "an interpretation" but we seldom hear that someone made "a sensemaking". We hear instead that people make sense of something, but even then, the activity rather than the outcome is in the foreground.
Even when interpretation is treated as a process, the implied nature of the process is different. The act of interpreting implies that something is there, a text in the workd waiting to be discovered or approximated. Sensemaking, however, is less about discovery than it is about invention.
p15:
The Western and the Japanese man mean something different when thay talk of "making a decision". In the west, all the emphasis is on the answer to the question...To the Japanese, however, the important element in decision making is defining the question. The important and crucial steps are to decide wheter there is a need for a decision and what the decision is about.
[For some organization in Milton Keynes, EVs were not even a question, for others they were a question about costs and performance, and for yet another subset they were about new opportunities, markets and competitive advantages. ] [It all depends on who I am and what I am trying to achieve. It also depends on what I think is expected of me. Sensemaking is grounded in identity construction. Se Ring and Van de Ven 1989, p 180]
[Organizational life is not fully captured by the metaphor of reading texts, as discussed by Czarniawzka-Joerges 1992, p253-254] the text metaphor implies that meaning already exists and is waiting to be found rather than it awaits construction that might not happen or might go awry, and suggests a unity that is untenable when there are subuniverses of meaning.
p35
People who stody sensemaking oscillate ontologically because this is what helps them understand the actions of people in everyday life who could care less about ontology...If people have multiple identities and deal with multiple realities, why should we expect them to be ontological purists? To do so is to limit their capability for sensemaking. More likely is the posibility that over time people will act like interpretivists, functionalists, radical humanists, and radical structuralists.
P37:
There are many ways in which actioin can affect meaning other than by producuing visible consequences in the world...the act that never gets done, gets done too late, gets dropped too soon, or for which time never seems right is seldom a senseless act. More often, its meaning seems all too clear. [e.g., non-adoption or timid adoption of EVs or other innovations.]
57:
Having an accurate environmental map may be less important than having some map that brings order to the world and prompts action.
Even if accuracy were important, executives seldom produce it. from the standpoint of sensemaking , that is no big problem. The strength of sensemaking as a perspective derives from the fact that it does not rely on accuracy and its model is not object perception. Instead, sensemaking is about plausibility, pragmatics, coherence, reasonableness, creation, invention and instrumentality.
P 61
filtered information is less accurate but, if the filtering is effective, more understandable (Starbuck and Milliken 1988, p41)
p 121:
To identify stimuli properly and to select adequate responses, organizations map their environments and constitute theories of action which organizations elaborate and refine as new sitations are encountered (Hedberg 1981, p7) The references to the act of mapping and to a map as a product are important because they suggest that the growing interest in cognitive maps (e.g. Huff 1990) and cause maps (Voyer and Faulkner 1989) has relevance for problems of sensemaking. Maps, knowledge structures (Walsh, Henderson and Deighton, 1988) and mental models (e.g., Barr, Stimpert and Huff, 1992) all contain substance that provides a meaningful frame that facilitates meaningful noticing.
P 123
For Argyris, a crucial problem in effective action is that the theories of action people actually use may differ from the theories of action they espouse. This potential split carries the cautionary message for students of sensemaking that observations of action (Silverman, 1970) are crucial to offset the possibility that what people tell us about their theories of sensemaking has limited relevance to how they function... Argyris (1976) also observed that theories-in-use produce enactive sense-making:
...Every theory-in-use is a self-fulfilling prophecy to some extent. we construct the reality of our behavioral worlds through the same process by which we construct our theories-in-use. Theory building is reality building, not only because our theories in use help to determine what we perceive of the behavioral world, but also because our theories-in-use determine our actions, which in turn help to determine the characteristics of the behavioral world, which in turn feed into our theories in use. (pp 11-12)
[This interrelatedness of theory-building and reality-building is very relevant within the malleable space of a strategic niche. ]
p 124
Traditions (Shils, 1981) provide some of the most interesting content for sensemaking as well as a point of linkage with institutional theory (Pfeffer, 1982, p 239). We understand tradition to mean something that was created, was performed or believed in the past, or believed to have existed or to have been performed or believed in the past, and that has been or is being handed down or transmitted from one generation to the next...For something to qualify as a tradition, a pattern must be transmitted at least twice, over three generations. Researchers should perk up when reading that list because, in an age of mergers, acquisitions, takeovers, reorganizations and downsizing, there may no longer be such a thing as "generations". We may all be first-generation members, all the time, and over and over. There may be still quasi-generations, but they are defined less by longevity than by history of assignments. The length of time it takes to be viewed as "seasoned" and "elder" may, in the nanosecond nineties, have shrunk to weeks or days.
p 126
Individuals, groups and organizations that work hard at articulating their evanescent actions create a "tradition of conduct". The content of such a tradition consists of images and beliefs that capture "the patterns which guide actions, the ends sought, the conceptions of appropriate and effective means to attain those ends, the structures which result from and are maintained by those actions" (Shils, 1981, p 25) These are content resources for sensemaking made available by traditions. And they can vary widely in the ease with which they allow people to re-accomplish actions that embody lessons learned by earlier generations.
[So... action that is not grounded in tradition becomes little more than trial and error, but action that is too bound by tradition creates a relative disadvantage relative to more imaginative, adaptable competitors.]
Some references to chase:
Ring and Rands, 1989 - The Minnesota studies
Ring and Van de Ven, 1989 - The Minnesota studies
Czarniawzka-Joerges, 1992 - Exploring complex organizations
Starbuck and Milliken, 1988 - The executive effect. concepts and methods for studying top managers
Hedberg, 1981 - How organizations learn and unlearn
Huff, 1990 - Mapping strategic thought
Voyer and Faulkner, 1989 - Organizational cognition in a jazz ensemble ?
Walsh, Henderson and Deighton, 1988 - negotiated belief structures and decision performance
Barr, Stimpert and Huff, 1992 - cognitive change, strategic action and organizational renewal
Silverman, 1970 - The theory of Organizations
Argyris, 1976 - Increasing leadership effectiveness
Shils, 1981 - Tradition
Pfeffer, 1982 - Power in Organizations
June 13, 2012
This is a strange, brilliant, infuriating book. Weick develops a theory of people and organizations as entities that make sense of their word through stories, and the kinds of dsyfunction that can happen when those stories no longer match reality. People only know what they're thinking once they say it, and honest and open communication is a key element of success.
I'll admit that as a social constructivist, this makes a lot of sense to me. I particularly like the way that Weick neatly skewers the canard of 'shared values' as implying 'collective values' when it more often tends to mean 'values distributed from management', and the call for drawing on as rich of pool of language as possible.
What makes this book infuriating is that I'm not quite sure who it's for. It's very abstract, and a manager interested in improving their organization would not find many useful tips. For researchers, it mostly points towards "do ethnography, be a participant." We make sense of the world through stories, but I'm not sure how, or which stories.
I'll admit that as a social constructivist, this makes a lot of sense to me. I particularly like the way that Weick neatly skewers the canard of 'shared values' as implying 'collective values' when it more often tends to mean 'values distributed from management', and the call for drawing on as rich of pool of language as possible.
What makes this book infuriating is that I'm not quite sure who it's for. It's very abstract, and a manager interested in improving their organization would not find many useful tips. For researchers, it mostly points towards "do ethnography, be a participant." We make sense of the world through stories, but I'm not sure how, or which stories.
March 30, 2023
A dense book, but there are some fascinating ideas in here. A few quick notes:
- fallacy of centrality: if I don't know about it, it isn't happening
- all perception is a form of memory
- things that affect memory affect sensemaking
- enactment: through our actions, we generate aspects of our environment which then constrans us
- cognitive bracketing: we make something real by focusing attention on it
- stress reduces performance
- a well-articulated, shared perspective can influence an organization
- culture is transmitted by examples which become artifacts
- we can't transmit action (work) because it's ephemeral. Instead, we transmit images of work
- most organizational models are based on argumentation, but most organizational realities are based on narratives
- what makes stories noteworthy
- sensemaking is about enlarging small cues
- sense is provisional
- people get by doing sensemaking with whatever they have access to
- sensemaking takes a clear belief|action and links to to a less clear action|belief to make meaning
- to believe is to notice selectively
- socially constructed reality tends towards stability
- we do sensemaking through self-fulfilling prophecies
- if a behavior is harder to change than beliefs about the behavior, the beliefs will get adjusted to justify the behavior
- commitments push our sensemaking efforts to focus on the actions that committed us
- we don't choose things that are good, but things become good because we choose them
- in bureaucracies, meaning is passed down
- meaning is invented, not discovered
- sensemaking involves changing the environment
- a sensible event is one that looks like something that has happened before
- fallacy of centrality: if I don't know about it, it isn't happening
- all perception is a form of memory
- things that affect memory affect sensemaking
- enactment: through our actions, we generate aspects of our environment which then constrans us
- cognitive bracketing: we make something real by focusing attention on it
- stress reduces performance
- a well-articulated, shared perspective can influence an organization
- culture is transmitted by examples which become artifacts
- we can't transmit action (work) because it's ephemeral. Instead, we transmit images of work
- most organizational models are based on argumentation, but most organizational realities are based on narratives
- what makes stories noteworthy
- sensemaking is about enlarging small cues
- sense is provisional
- people get by doing sensemaking with whatever they have access to
- sensemaking takes a clear belief|action and links to to a less clear action|belief to make meaning
- to believe is to notice selectively
- socially constructed reality tends towards stability
- we do sensemaking through self-fulfilling prophecies
- if a behavior is harder to change than beliefs about the behavior, the beliefs will get adjusted to justify the behavior
- commitments push our sensemaking efforts to focus on the actions that committed us
- we don't choose things that are good, but things become good because we choose them
- in bureaucracies, meaning is passed down
- meaning is invented, not discovered
- sensemaking involves changing the environment
- a sensible event is one that looks like something that has happened before
July 24, 2011
READ JUL 2011
Nice overview of sensemaking in organizations. The seven properties (pg. 61) and resources (p. 65) provide a good foundation for anyone interested in this topic.
Best quotes: "perception, by definition, can never be accurate" (p. 60); "organizations as entities are developed and maintained only through continuous communication activity. If the communication activity stops, the organization disappears. If the communication activity becomes confused, the organization begins to malfunction" (p. 75); and "Ambiguity allows people to maintain the perception that there is agreement, when in fact, there is not" (p. 120).
Nice overview of sensemaking in organizations. The seven properties (pg. 61) and resources (p. 65) provide a good foundation for anyone interested in this topic.
Best quotes: "perception, by definition, can never be accurate" (p. 60); "organizations as entities are developed and maintained only through continuous communication activity. If the communication activity stops, the organization disappears. If the communication activity becomes confused, the organization begins to malfunction" (p. 75); and "Ambiguity allows people to maintain the perception that there is agreement, when in fact, there is not" (p. 120).
July 9, 2009
Probably the best business book I have ever read. His earlier work, The Socail Psychology of Organizing, was also excellent.
Want to read
March 23, 2008again, for future research/reference purposes.
May 26, 2018
As a post-positivist perspective, this is an excellent account of the process of how existing organizations contain interdependent actors' experience as a mechanism for making sense through puzzle solving. This is an excellent read for several reasons:
1. It provides ample literature and direction for anyone who wishes to use sensemaking in their own research,
2. It leans on the author's prior research, and others' to develop a nice synthesis in order to explain the prior interests of sensemaking and organizational research.
3. It gives a solid enough account that it suggests how all actors of an organization can actively use sensemaking as a process to develop themselves and the organizations they take a part in.
1. It provides ample literature and direction for anyone who wishes to use sensemaking in their own research,
2. It leans on the author's prior research, and others' to develop a nice synthesis in order to explain the prior interests of sensemaking and organizational research.
3. It gives a solid enough account that it suggests how all actors of an organization can actively use sensemaking as a process to develop themselves and the organizations they take a part in.
October 9, 2022
Despite being quite academic, this is not too challenging to read by the uninitiated like me!
The connections with language, action, intersubjectivity, beliefs, expectations and experience within an organizational context provides insight, for me, into organizational change and experimental destabilisation ( I think it’s equivalent to Dave Snowden’s ‘shallow dive into chaos’ )
I now need to go over my highlights, create some notes, merge with notes from books on complexity and action theory and see what emerges… “I’ll know what I think when I see what I say”
The connections with language, action, intersubjectivity, beliefs, expectations and experience within an organizational context provides insight, for me, into organizational change and experimental destabilisation ( I think it’s equivalent to Dave Snowden’s ‘shallow dive into chaos’ )
I now need to go over my highlights, create some notes, merge with notes from books on complexity and action theory and see what emerges… “I’ll know what I think when I see what I say”
January 12, 2021
This is a very important theoretical book for anybody studying organizations. Well, somewhat important.
June 15, 2010
I had to read this book for a corporate communications class and even though my professor SWEARS BY IT, myself and my classmates found it utterly useless. It is meant for academics and not for their students, maybe it has some useful information in it but it needs to be translated for laypeople.
March 20, 2011
another really good book. very insightful, he basically turns the focus off of the decisions organizations make and moves it on to how organizations interpret signals from the environment. quite interesting if you think about management/leadership topics
July 24, 2020
It's written as a primer on the subject of sensemaking. Weick gives an overview of sociologists', economists', and psychologists' forrays into sensemaking and how they relate.
The presented ideas are eye-opening for anyone working in organizations development.
The presented ideas are eye-opening for anyone working in organizations development.
Read
April 10, 2016Exceptionel framwork for undestanding the processes in an organization or just when people en generel observe, interact and react
October 18, 2017
Scritto (tradotto?) in maniera pesante e macchinosa, non è esattamente una lettura scorrevole e piacevole. Ma i contenuti - e le numerose fonti di riferimento - costituiscono una materia preziosa e un'ottima introduzione all'argomento.
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