ABSTRACT

Deborah Ancona (2011), Director of the MIT Leadership Center, argues that “today’s leaders need the ability to make sense of complex environments” and that “sensemaking is a particularly important predictor of leadership success.” The top future work skill identified by the Institute for the Future was sensemaking. Sensemaking is also seen as vital in a VUCA world we live in in which business situations we face are one of perpetual white water (Smith, 2014) and can be characterized by volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity, confusion and feelings of disorientation (Maitlis & Sonenshein, 2010).

As businesses face an increasing and rapid escalation of complexity, the IBM global study of over 1500 CEOs revealed that there is an urgent need to cope with complexity and, more importantly, to capitalize on complexity. Anderson of Intel (2014) concurs with this. He argues that sensemaking is central to understanding customers and the business they are in and that sensemaking “isn’t just for innovation anymore, it informs strategy and long-range planning.”

This paper defines and draws insights on sensemaking from multiple perspectives and reference disciplines. It discusses the 5 principles of sensemaking developed by Madsjberg and Rasmussen (2014) and introduces case studies in which these principles are applied. The paper ends with a discussion of implications for curriculum development along with recommendations on how to incorporate sensemaking principles into the curriculum.