Sensemaking in Organizations

Rating:
Summary: Powerful insight into how people work together
Review: This book has a very academic tone but it has some powerful implications for anyone in business. The book makes a number of points that are not intuitive but that are very powerful. For example, he talks about the advantages of speed, confidence, and plausibility in problem solving and why they may be more important than accuracy

Rating:
Summary: Sensemaking fails to translate theory into practice
Review: Weick's book is thoroughly researched, drawing its insights from psychological and organisational studies.

It offers new views on how organisations operate, and how they generate meaning. It points out that reality is not something outside the organisation, but something that is constructed by people within the organisation - an empowering insight. Weick also extensively discusses where and how this 'making of sense' happens.

But the book fails largely in linking this theory to practice. After making sense of 'Sensemaking', (which requires some mental acrobatics!), I still don't know how a leader can influence the sensemaking process to the benefit of the organisation. I'm still left with the basic question: So what?