p.39 In foresight, however, one is hard pressed
to distinguish accurate perceivers from inaccurate ones... Accurate perceptions ought to go with flawless analysis,
and flawless analyses ought to lead to correct actions, and correct actions ought to yield good results... Unfortunately,
such understanding can only exist after results have occurred and the results' goodness or badness clarifies
[JLJ - the word 'clarified' was most likely intended here], because good and bad results may arise
from very similar processes... Their research led Starbuck, Greve, and Hedberg (1978: 114) to conclude that "the
processes which produce crises are substantially identical to the processes which produce successes."
p.40 The present is itself substantially indeterminate
because people can only apprehend the present by placing it in the context of the past and the future, and vice versa... Not
only is the future unclear, it is fundamentally unpredictable.
p.41 Effective perceptual filtering amplifies relevant information and attenuates
irrelevant information, so that the relevant information comes into the perceptual foreground and the irrelevant information
recedes into the background... In complex environments, effective perceptual filtering requires detailed knowledge of the
task environment.
p.41 In real life, people do not know all of the sources of stimuli, nor
do they necessarily know how to distinguish relevant from irrelevant information. They must discover the characteristics of
sources and tasks experimentally. Some combinations of tasks and task environments occur often enough and with enough consistency
that people learn to make useful discriminations.
p.41 Long lags may intervene between executives'
actions and the visible outcomes of those actions, and these outcomes have multiple causes; so executives lack clear feedback
about the effectiveness of their perceptions and the relevance of information.
p.44 It is generally impossible to decide, at the time of perception,
whether perceptions will prove accurate or inaccurate, correct or incorrect, because perceptions are partly
predictions that may change reality, because different perceptions may lead to similar actions, and because similar perceptions
may lead to different actions. Many perceptual errors, perhaps the great majority, become erroneous only in retrospect.
p.45 The analyses to follow divide perception into noticing and sensemaking...
each of these activities depends upon the other. For instance, what people notice becomes input to their sensemaking,
and in turn, the sense that people have made appears to influence what the people notice (Goleman, 1985). Noticing
involves a rudimentary form of sensemaking in that noticing requires distinguishing signal from noise, making crude separations
of relevant from irrelevant. Similarly, sensemaking involves a form of noticing when a perceiver reclassifies remembered signal
as noise, or remembered noise as signal, in order to fit a new interpretive framework.
p.45 The range of what we think and do
is limited by what we fail to notice.
And because we fail to notice
that we fail to notice
there is little we can do
to change
until we notice
how failing to notice
shapes our thoughts and deeds.
R. D. Laing (Goleman, 1985: 24)
p.46 Noticing is an act of classifying stimuli as signals or noise.
p.47 Bargh (1982) pointed out that people seem to have two
modes of noticing, one of them controlled and volitional, and one automatic and involuntary. Although the two modes
interact on occasion, they operate independently of each other most of the time.
p.47 The standards that determine what people notice in real life seem to
be of several not-entirely-distinct types: People notice familiar and unfamiliar stimuli, as well as what they believe to
be relevant, important, significant, desirable, or evil.
p.47 an executive who moves into a new industry would initially overlook
some phenomena that seem unimportant, but would gradually learn to notice those phenomena as experience clarifies their significance.
p.51 Daft and Weick (1984: 286) remarked: "Managers... must wade into the
ocean of events that surround the organization and actively try to make sense of them."
p.52 To solve problems that blind spots have made unsolvable, people need
new perceptual frameworks that portray the problematic situations differently.
p.57 Beliefs about "what matters"... influence sensemaking by determining the frames of reference that give
meaning to phenomena (Jervis, 1976)
p.60 Of course, some sensemaking frameworks lead to more effective behaviors
than others do, but the criteria of effectiveness are many and inconsistent, and perceivers usually can appraise effectiveness
only in retrospect. The most accurate perceivers may be either ones who change their minds readily or ones who believe
strongly enough to enact their beliefs., and the happiest perceivers may be the least accurate ones.
The ambiguity and complexity of their worlds imply that perceivers may benefit by using multiple sensemaking frameworks
to appraise events; but perceivers are more likely to act forcefully and effectively if they see things simply, and
multiple frameworks may undermine organizations' political structures (Brunsson, 1985; Wildavsky, 1972). Malleable
worlds imply that perceivers may benefit by using frameworks that disclose opportunities to exert influence, but
people who try to change their worlds often produce unintended results, even the opposite of what they intended. Perceivers
who understand themselves and their environments should appreciate sensemaking frameworks that recognize the inevitability
of distortions and that foster beneficial distortions, but such wise people should also doubt that they actually know what
is good for themselves, and they should recognize that the most beneficial errors are often the most
surprising ones. Fortunately, people seem to have a good deal of latitude for discretion. People investigate hypotheses from
the viewpoint that they are correct and as long as results can be interpreted within current frameworks, the frameworks need
not change, or even be evaluated (Snyder, 1981). Further, sensemaking may or may not determine whether people respond
appropriately to environmental events: sometimes people act first and then later make sense of the outcomes (Starbuck,
1983; Weick, 1983).
Because sensemaking is so elusive, noticing may be at least as important
as sensemaking. Perhaps sensemaking and noticing interact as complements in effective problem solving: sensemaking
focuses on subtleties and interdependencies, whereas noticing picks up major events and gross trends. Noticing determines
whether people even consider responding to environmental events. If events are noticed, people make sense of them;
and if events are not noticed, they are not available for sensemaking. Thus, it makes a great difference how foregrounds,
backgrounds, and adaptation levels adjust to current stimuli and experience. Insofar as people can control these adjustments
voluntarily, they can design noticing systems that respond to changes or ignore them, that emphasize some constituencies and
deemphasize others, or that integrate many stimuli simultaneously or concentrate on a few stimuli at a time.
