Organisational theory
Karl Weick
b. 1936
Sensemaking shows meaning assembled after the fact from cues and plausible stories; small wins argue for a scale of problem people can act on.
Read alongside: Sense · Shape
- Start with
- Sensemaking in Organizations (1995)
- Where they resist the book
- If sense is always retrospective, sensing in the moment is a harder claim than the chapter makes it sound.
Works worth the time
Sensemaking in Organizations · 1995
How people work out what has happened, mostly afterwards and mostly together.
Publisher: SAGE ↗Read further
- Wikipedia: Karl E. Weick ↗
Wikipedia
Where Weick appears
Organisations make sense retrospectively, and then act as though they knew.
Weick's sensemaking shows meaning being assembled after the fact from cues and plausible stories. Schön's reflection-in-action is the counter-practice: examining the framing while still inside the situation. Snowden's Cynefin adds the discipline of naming which kind of terrain you are on before choosing a method.
Small repeated acts outrun large announced ones.
Weick's small wins argue that a scale of problem people can act on beats a scale they can only admire. Schein's levels of culture explain why the deepest layer is not written anywhere. Lewin's field theory keeps the attention on conditions rather than character.