Garry VanPatter posts to the Social SenseMaking Group on Facebook explaining how 21st century SenseMaking and Social SenseMaking in particular differ from Karl Weick’s SenseMaking.
“We consider Weick to be among the pioneers of the contemporary sensemaking movement. As you know, Weick is widely recognized as an important American organizational psychologist and theorist but his work connects across several other knowledge realms as well.
While acknowledging Weick we think it is important to appreciate that his work represents only one of several avenues that lead to what is now 21st century sensemaking. It is an avenue that happens to have a particular texture, tone and focus.
To be brief, take a look at this parallel universe picture:
Richard Saul Wurman’s Information Anxiety was published in 1989.
Karl E. Weick’s Sensemaking in Organizations was published in 1995.
Unfortunately the information sensemaking consciousness and precisions that Wurman wrote about in 1989 are completely absent from Weick’s 1995 perspective. On the other hand if one is looking for theoretical foundations for sensemaking, Weick’s work contains many insight gems and for those just starting their own sensemaking of this subject I would highly recommend studying his perspectives. There is nothing particularly contradictory in Weick’s work but his view as an organizational scholar is not exactly what we do in everyday sensemaking consulting practice.
Today what sensemaking has already become significantly extends these two pioneering perspectives that were in themselves built on the shoulders of many others who came before them.
Since you asked, I can think of at least ten reasons why 21st century SenseMaking and Social SenseMaking in particular differ from Weick’s SenseMaking.
Here are five of ten brief examples:
1. Weick was/is focused at the altitude of organizations. As an organizational psychologist writing in 1995 he viewed organizations as complex learning systems. He often referred to organizations being equivalent to level eight on Kenneth Boulding’s (1956) nine level Scale of System Complexity. Weick was in effect working on the “foundations for organizational science.” This altitude view is only part of where Social SenseMaking is focused today. As per the Measure of America example Social SenseMakers are also interested in the changing role of sensemaking in broader less structured society.
2. Weick saw organizations as “interpretation systems” focused internally and externally. In Weick’s sensemaking picture internal organizational actors engage in collective sensemaking primarily through discussion without any specialized tools or knowledge. As an observer of organizational interpretation Weick paints a picture of 100% emergence. In considerable contrast today the function of sensemaking and some might argue of next design in general is to provide frameworks or scaffolds that serve as cognitive or emergence accelerators. In 21st century organizational and societal contexts where change is now constant there is not always time for the machinations of 100% emergence. In many organizations 100% emergence represents the existing conditions that organizational leaders seek to overcome and improve upon. Unless they intend to conduct an academic study what they are most often seeking are the tools and methods of enabling acceleration. The notion of professional SenseMakers as specialized intermediary enabling actors does not appear in Weick’s sensemaking picture. Today sensemaking is not only a naturally occurring organizational or societal function that everyone participates in, it is also one being addressed by a significant, growing and rapidly changing industry as enablers of organized sensemaking, sometimes called distributed sensemaking. Social SenseMaking is about the deliberate bringing of that knowledge into the realm of broader society.
3. Weick saw dialogue primarily as words so was not focused on visualization as an enabler and accelerator of sensemaking. His work was not about exploring how visualization enhances sensemaking. In his later 2005 writings Weick sought to make sensemaking more action oriented but still described it as “turning circumstances into a situation that is comprehended explicitly in words.” His cognitive bias is often evident in his writings. To Visual SenseMakers this orientation and omission contradicts his stated sensemaking intentions. Whala! If they do not teach visualization in business school or organizational science school that’s not to say it does not bring significant value. Today we know that it does.
4. Weick was/is more attuned to organizational learning as a form of action and less oriented towards design, transformation or strategic problem solving modes and methods. His three part process of Scanning, (Data Collection), Interpretation (Data Given Meaning) and Learning (Action Taken) maps primarily to the front end of transformation process. He makes no methodical connection to the remainder of the transformation cycle. Today Social SenseMakers with deep methods knowledge are more directly placing sensemaking in a changemaking methodological context. Connections are being made not just between interpretation and learning but between understanding and change as a form of deliberate action.
5. In Weick’s organizational sensemaking universe “Operational researchers and other staff personel perform computations on environmental data and weigh alternatives before proceeding.” Today making sense of data is only a small part of sensemaking. Those involved in transformation by design have already moved beyond data visualization and are enabling collective sensemaking of the complex challenge/opportunity space, the human activities in the space, etc, not just the data or information in that space. In the context of an increasingly complex world sensemaking has been broadened, repurposed and reframed to better sync with the activities already underway in practice. This represents significant change for those involved in next design practice, transformation practice, what ever you want to call that.
Part of the challenge with studying Weick is that he did not walk the walk in his writing on the subject of sensemaking as Wurman did. Much of Weick’s writing is jargon-filled, academic and impenetrable. He was primarily focused on his own scholarly academic tribal audience. In addition Weick’s writing on the subject rarely contained visualization. For every 2000 words you might see one small visual model. The protocols that he was writing to were those of academia not of diverse cognition. In contrast Wurman was interested in directing his insights at the general public. His explanations signaled knowledge of cognitive balancing. Today this kind of awareness is considered to be part of SenseMaking 101.
Perhaps we can talk about this more off list.
Today we see sensemaking sitting at the intersections of multiple realms of knowledge underpinned by numerous interconnected theoretical foundations that one can certainly study: information theory, learning theory, organizational development theory, organizational psychology, knowledge creation theory, cognitive theory, communication theory, systems theory, emergence theory, complexity theory, chaos theory, design theory, innovation theory, social network theory, problem solving theory, anticipatory science theory, futurology & foresight theory, behavioral change theory, transformation by design, etc. The other day I saw an author trying to make sense of the world through the reverse life cycle lens of Benjamin Button!
In spite of the zillions of theories, a lot of great thinking and considerable research there is not yet a solid theoretical foundation for what sensemaking is becoming. Needless to say we are at Humantific interested in participating in the reformulation of that foundation now that sensemaking has become, like so many other realms of knowledge, a pattern in motion.
If you look closely underneath the design thinking revolution I believe you will find that it primarily involves the scaling up of sensemaking. Inward and outward directed human-centered research has all become part of sensemaking.
It might be a bit of a mind-bender to some but what we believe is changing most is how humans navigate and make sense of complexity in the context of continuous change. For some of us sensemaking is the revolution within the changemaking revolution.
Hope this helps.
See more on Social SenseMaking
Humantific CoFounder GK VanPatter will give a talk on Making Thinkmospheres Transparent at the upcoming EXPOSED conference being organized by Master of Science and PhD students at the Arizona State University College of Design, March 6th & 7th.
Written at a different time we do not have to agree with everything in the materials to appreciate these works.
