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Leadership as the Legitimation of Doubt (Weick, 2001)
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The following article was published as Chapter 8 in W. Bennis, G.M. Spreitzer, and T. Cummings (Eds.), The Future of Leadership: Today's Top Thinkers on Leadership Speak to the Next Generation, San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2001, pp.91-102
 
In: Making Sense of the Organization: the Impermanent Organization Volume 2, pp.263-271

p.264 In an unknowable, unpredictable world, sensemaking is all we have... It is the combination of thrown-ness [JLJ - Heidegger proclaimed that we are ‘thrown’ into the world and that our Being-in-the-world is a ‘thrownness’], unknowability, and unpredictability that makes having some direction, any direction, the central issue for human beings, and by implication, the central issue for leaders. Sensemaking is about navigating by means of a compass rather than a map... the compass and the compass needle, which function much like human values, are the mainstays of learning and renewal. If people find themselves in a world that is only partially charted, and if leaders also admit that they too don't know, then both are more likely to mobilize resources for direction making rather than for performance.

p.265 A compass makes it clearer that we are looking for a direction rather than a location.

p.265 When bewildered people ask, "What's the story?" the crucial thing is to get them moving, observing, updating, and arguing about feasibility and plausibility. A powerful means to do this is for the leader to answer the question by saying, "I don't know what the story is, but let's find out."

p.266 I want to suggest that, in the face of doubt, leaders are best served if they focus on animation, improvisation, lightness, authentication, and learning.

p.266 Successful sensemaking is more likely when people stay in motion, have a direction, look closely, update often, and converse candidly.

p.267 In a way, any old prescription, any old change program, any old mantra or guru or text will do, as long as that program animates people and gets them moving and generating experiments that uncover opportunities; provides a direction; encourages updating through improved situational awareness and closer attention to what is actually happening; and facilitates respectful interaction in which trust, trustworthiness, and self-respect (Campbell, 1990) develop equally and allow people to build a stable rendition of what they face.

p.267 What matters is the extent to which the program triggers sustained animation, direction, attention, and respectful interaction. It is these four activities that make it easier or harder for people to collectively make sense of what they are facing and to deal with it.

p.267 When people are thrown into an unknowable, unpredictable environment, there is also a premium on improvisation. Improvisation can be defined as reworking previously experienced material in relation to unanticipated ideas that are conceived, shaped, and transformed under the special conditions of a current performance... Improvisation involves the flexible treatment of preplanned material. It is not about "making something out of nothing." ...Improvisation materializes around a simple... formula, or theme that provides the pretext for real-time composing and embellishment.

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