Making Sense of the Organization elaborates on the
influential idea that organizations are interpretation systems that
scan, interpret, and learn. These selected essays represent a
new approach to the way managers learn and act in response to their
environment and the way organizational change evolves.
Readers of this volume will find a wealth of examples and insights
which go well beyond thinking and cognition to explain
action. The author's ideas are at the forefront of our
thinking on leadership, teams, and the management of change.
"This book engages the puzzle of impermanence in
organizing. Through rich examples, evocative language, artful
literature citing, and imaginative connecting, Weick re-introduces
core ideas and themes around attending, interpreting, acting and
learning to unlock new insights about impermanent organizing.
The wisdom in this book is timeless and timely. It prods scholars
and managers of organizations to complicate their views of
organizing in ways that enrich thought and action." - Jane E.
Dutton, Robert L. Kahn Distinguished University Professor,
University of Michigan
Autorentext
Karl Weick is the Rensis Likert College Professor of Organizational Behavior and Psychology, and Professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan.
He is one of the leading figures in the American Academy of Management and he is seen by many as one of the most influential thinkers and writers in the field.
Klappentext
The seeming permanence of organizations conceals an endless cycle of interruptions, recoveries, and re-organizing. This fundamental cycle is explored in a series of essays that focus on ways in which people organize their attention, interpretations, actions, and learning in order to cope with impermanence. Coping is explored in settings such as the spread of a puzzling virus, a foam strike on the space shuttle, excess deaths following pediatric surgery, wildland fires that suddenly explode, and the misidentification of fingerprints in a crime lab. Recovery from events such as these tends to be rough. The fixes made in the name of recovery tend to be transient and eventually give way to new interruptions, new challenges for sensemaking, and renewed efforts to reorganize. The purpose of these essays is to render the challenges less mysterious.
Zusammenfassung
Making Sense of the Organization elaborates on the influential idea that organizations are interpretation systems that scan, interpret, and learn. These selected essays represent a new approach to the way managers learn and act in response to their environment and the way organizational change evolves. Readers of this volume will find a wealth of examples and insights which go well beyond thinking and cognition to explain action. The author's ideas are at the forefront of our thinking on leadership, teams, and the management of change.
This book engages the puzzle of impermanence in organizing. Through rich examples, evocative language, artful literature citing, and imaginative connecting, Weick re-introduces core ideas and themes around attending, interpreting, acting and learning to unlock new insights about impermanent organizing. The wisdom in this book is timeless and timely. It prods scholars and managers of organizations to complicate their views of organizing in ways that enrich thought and action. - Jane E. Dutton, Robert L. Kahn Distinguished University Professor, University of Michigan
Inhalt
Preface vii
Acknowledgments ix
Part I Introduction 1
1. Organized Impermanence: An Overview 3
2. Mundane Poetics: Searching for Wisdom in Organizational Theory 9
3. Faith, Evidence, and Action: Better Guesses in an Unknowable World 27
Part II Attending 45
4. Managing the Unexpected: Complexity as Distributed Sensemaking 47
5. Information Overload Revisited 65
Kathleen M. Sutcliffe and Karl. E Weick
6. Organizing for Mindfulness: Eastern Wisdom and Western Knowledge 85
Karl E. Weick and Ted Putnam
Part III Interpretation 107
7. Making Sense of Blurred Images: Mindful Organizing in Mission STS-107 109
8. Organizing and the Process of Sensemaking 129
Karl E. Weick, Kathleen M. Sutcliffe, and David Obstfeld
9. Impermanent Systems and Medical Errors: Variety Mitigates Adversity 153
Part IV Action 173
10. Hospitals as Cultures of Entrapment: A Re-analysis of the Bristol Royal Infirmary 175
Karl E. Weick and Kathleen M. Sutcliffe
11. Enacting an Environment: The Infrastructure of Organizing 189
12. Positive Organizing and Organizational Tragedy 207
Part V Learning and Change 223
13. Emergent Change as a Universal in Organizations 225
14. Drop Your Tools: An Allegory for Organizational Studies 243
15. Leadership as the Legitimation of Doubt 261
Epilogue 273
References 275
Index 281