Sensemaking

Organizational ignorance

An organization becomes ignorant not only when nobody knows, but when limited attention, learned routines, interpretive frames, hierarchy, incentives, and power prevent a consequential signal from becoming safe to express, credible to authority, or effective in action. Ignorance can be an unavoidable condition to manage, an unintended result of organization, a resource for inquiry, or a strategically useful arrangement; those possibilities require different evidence and responsibility judgments.

How do organizations fail to know what their members or affected communities know—and how can they remain capable of doubt, correction, and responsible action?

Sensemaking in Organizations

Weick's account of sensemaking becomes concrete at Mann Gulch, where a crew fleeing wildfire could no longer fit a lethal situation to its roles, tools, or expectations. Foreman Wag Dodge improvised an escape fire that saved him, but the action did not become a plausible instruction to the others; the case reveals how identity and enacted evidence can coordinate action or collapse, while later research shows that leaders, stakeholders, institutions, and power shape which account becomes actionable.