Sensemaking - Weick

Karl Weick has been researching sensemaking for almost 40 years. His "Social Psychology of Organizing" (2nd edition, 1979) remains the most thought-provoking book on the topic I've read, and is the first place I'd send someone who is primarily interested in an academic discussion of how organizations know what they know, and how they turn that knowledge into action.

It's unfortunate that many people associate Weick only with his recent research into high reliability organizations. This research is narrower in scope and applicability than his earlier work, and can leave the misleading impression that Weick is primarily grounded in an analytical approach.

And, since Weick's a social psychologist, his focus is on group (vs. individual) behavior and needs to be augmented by an individual/cognitive model (e.g., Klein's Data-Frame).

Weick's basic framework focuses on how individuals and organizations use knowledge to Enact, Select, and Retain meaning. Weick's writing is provocative and challenging...he provides no simple answers.

Despite the limitations of his approach and the challenge of navigating his writing, any serious student of sensemaking should make Weick's "Social Psychology of Organizing" and "Making Sense of the Organization" (collection of papers, 2001) required reading.

Bottom line: Weick's "Social Psychology" remains for me the single richest source of provocative insights into organizational sensemaking. Even though equally rich sources may eventually emerge, I can't imagine them completely displacing it from a central place in the field of organizational sensemaking. Buy it & read it...now.