Development and Learning in Organizations: An International Journal Thinking outside the bun: the manager's role in sensemaking Linda Wheeler Article information: To cite this document: Linda Wheeler, (2006),"Thinking outside the bun: the manager's role in sensemaking", Development and Learning in Organizations: An International Journal, Vol. 20 Iss 5 pp. 12 - 14 Permanent link to this document: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/14777280610701586 Downloaded on: 21 June 2016, At: 23:22 (PT) References: this document contains references to 2 other documents. To copy this document: permissions@ emeraldinsight.com The fulltext of this document has been downloaded 1157 times since 2006* Users who downloaded this article also downloaded: Downloaded by University of California Los Angeles At 23:22 21 June 2016 (PT) (2010),"Making sense of sensemaking: the critical sensemaking approach", Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management: An International Journal, Vol. 5 Iss 2 pp. 182-195 http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/17465641011068857 (2014),"The politics of sensemaking and sensegiving at work", Journal of Workplace Learning, Vol. 26 Iss 1 pp. 3-21 http:// dx.doi.org/10.1108/JWL-03-2012-0016 (2009),"Change, talk and sensemaking", Journal of Organizational Change Management, Vol. 22 Iss 5 pp. 459-479 http:// dx.doi.org/10.1108/09534810910983442 Access to this document was granted through an Emerald subscription provided by emerald-srm:390602 [] For Authors If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/ authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.com Emerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 j ournals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services. Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. *Related content and download information correct at time of download.
Thinking outside the bun: the manager’s role in sensemaking Linda Wheeler Linda Wheeler is an fast food restaurant specializing in Mexican fare once had a slogan of ‘‘Think outside A assistant professor based the bun.’’ The Mexican fast food restaurant wanted to teach people to change their at the Western Illinois Downloaded by University of California Los Angeles At 23:22 21 June 2016 (PT) usual ‘‘hamburger’’ thinking and behavior. Learning can be defined as a permanent University, Moline, Illinois, change in behavior. If employees are to learn and develop within and with organizations, USA. they must be open to changing their thinking and behavior. They have to learn to think outside the bun. Is there any effective way to teach that, especially since people tend to resist changes in their comfort zone of thinking and behaving? Sensemaking How people make sense of the world – ‘‘sensemaking’’ – impacts how they see, interpret, and respond to potential or actual change, whether in themselves or their organization. Resistance to change can often be a matter of perceiving change through different lenses than do the managers trying to implement change. Dutton and Dukerich (1991), in their article ‘‘Keeping an eye on the mirror: image and identity in organizational adaptation,’’ studied the impact on employees and non-employees of a change in policy by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey regarding allowing homeless people to spend time in its facilities. How employees and others changed their view of the Port Authority and how the Port Authority ‘‘sold’’ the change is very much at the heart of sensemaking. As Dutton and Dukerich (1991, p. 547) stated: A knowledge of individuals’ beliefs about an organization’s identity is crucial for discerning the importance of an issue, its meanings, and its emotionality. Sensemaking, as developed by Weick (1995), makes the following assumptions: B What one expects is what one sees. B As humans it is very important that we make some sort of sense of the world. We have a strong need for organization, for cause-and-effect in order to be comfortable. B People cannot possibly take in all the sensory cues we receive every day, so we consciously and more often unconsciously choose which cues (sensory inputs) to ‘‘notice’’ and which to ignore. B Cues we ignore do not exist for us. B Cues we tend to accept are cues that fit with our assumptions about ourselves and the world around us. The sensemaking process The process of sensemaking is very simple, but we almost never recognize that we are doing it. We make sense of our world by putting cues we notice into existing frames in our heads. These frames are the beliefs, assumptions, biases, and perceptions we have developed PAGE 12 j DEVELOPMENT AND LEARNING IN ORGANIZATIONS j VOL. 20 NO. 5 2006, pp. 12-14, Q Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 1477-7282 DOI 10.1108/14777280610701586
‘‘ How people make sense of the world – ‘sensemaking’ – impacts how they see, interpret, and respond to potential or actual change, whether in themselves or their organization. ’’ over the years and to which we are very attached. We generally do not notice cues that do not fit our frames unless they are so unusual that we are ‘‘forced’’ to notice them. Once we put a cue into one of our frames, we then make a connection between the frame and the cue in order to draw a conclusion. For example, one frame might be a belief that skateboarding is a waste of time. The person with that belief sees a person skateboarding. The connection that person makes in his head is that the person skateboarding is wasting time. How we respond to cues shapes our situation and our reality. For example, a police officer pulls up at a stoplight. Two teenage boys are standing on the corner. They ‘‘salute’’ the police Downloaded by University of California Los Angeles At 23:22 21 June 2016 (PT) officer. The officer has several choices, each of which will produce a different reality for the officer. He can ignore the boys. He can cheerfully ‘‘salute’’ back. He can pull over and castigate the boys for the gesture. What he does next helps him create his reality. The response of the boys to whatever action the officer takes will help further create their reality, and so forth, back and forth. Another example is the self-fulfilling prophesy. A classic case is of the grade school teacher being told that certain of her incoming students are gifted, certain ones are average intellectually, and some are ‘‘slow.’’ Although the students so described were really just picked randomly and were all at about the same intelligence level, by the end of the year the so-designated gifted ones excelled, the so-designated average ones performed averagely, and the so-designated slow ones were behind. Plausibility, not accuracy is important People also work from plausibility rather than needing accuracy in assessing their situations and reality. Weick (1995, p. 54) gives an example of a true story that happened during the Second World War: The young lieutenant of a small Hungarian detachment in the Alps sent a reconnaissance unit into the icy wilderness. It began to snow immediately, snowed for two days, and the unit did not return. The lieutenant suffered, fearing that he had dispatched his own people to death. But on the third day the unit came back. Where had they been? How had they made their way? Yes, they said, we considered ourselves lost and waited for the end. And then one of us found a map in his pocket. That calmed us down. We pitched camp, lasted out the snowstorm, and then with the map we discovered our bearings. And here we are. The lieutenant borrowed this remarkable map and had a good look at it. He discovered to his astonishment that it was not a map of the Alps, but a map of the Pyrenees. The idea behind this example is that in order to make sense of something, people do not need a full and accurate ‘‘map.’’ Almost any map will do if it gets people orienting themselves and moving in their sensemaking. What people really need is a good story that motivates them, even if the story is not complete. What is important is that the story has plausibility, coherence, and reasonableness, a mental model from which people can make sense. As a person receives more information over time, he can alter the theory to fit the now-learned information. Without any theory or expectations, however, people cannot begin to learn and change. Our jobs as managers in change One of our jobs as managers, then, is to provide employees with well-crafted stories that teach them about upcoming organizational change. We should also provide them with VOL. 20 NO. 5 2006 j DEVELOPMENT AND LEARNING IN ORGANIZATIONS j PAGE 13
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