Sensemaking and Sensegiving in Organizations

Fifteen smokejumpers landed at Mann Gulch back in 1949 to put out a forest fire near the Missouri River. As the men were heading towards the fire, high winds caused the fire to suddenly expand. Just as their foreman realized that the fire is too fierce to fight, he ordered his men to "drop their tools" and retreat uphill. As the men were retreating, their foreman set up an escape fire to create a safe area that the forest fire would bypass and asked his men to come into that area. However, none of the men complied and kept running. 12 of those firemen were eventually killed.

From this case, the concept of sensemaking in organizations was born. Sensemaking is a process through which individuals make sense of their environments and the events that are occurring in them. And eventually how to respond to them.

In the case of the smokejumpers, the sense that the firemen made out of the shout "drop your tools" from their foreman was that they are not firemen anymore. Although, it is perfectly normal for firemen to escape from a fire in case the fire is too big, but the shout of "drop your tools" changed everything. It was perceived as an order for every man for himself, which is why they did not comply with the instruction from their foreman to come into the safe area. Even when escaping the fire, the firemen were still firemen and were under the obligation to do as instructed by their foremen. However, without their tools, they sensed that they were not firemen anymore and were not under the obligation to obey orders.

For organizations today, the sensemaking capacity of their employees maybe even more important than decision making. Sensemaking is the use of experience, reasoning, critical thinking, metaphors and analogies to attach meaning to a situation that is unprecedented. To bringing a sense of certainty to an uncertain situation. Employees should be able to see the bigger picture by piecing together different information, and using logic and creativity at the same time, along with intuition.

Sensegiving is derived from sensemaking. It is about interpreting the sensemaking capabilities of the audience you are interacting with and then using different communication styles to ensure that the right message is sent across.

Sensemaking and sensegiving capabilities in management is crucial as it directly affects the decisions that people make.