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SENSE MAKING

Runze Du

Chee Piong

BUS 700 Leadership and Creative Solutions Implementation

Feb 14th 2021

SENSE MAKING

Sensemaking refers to an action or a process of making sense where meaning is given to something. Sensemaking is a process through which individuals give meaning to their collective experiences. Sensemaking is also a process of structuring the unknown by inserting stimuli into some framework kinds to enable individuals to understand or comprehend, attribute, to extrapolate and predict the meaning of something. Sensemaking is an activity that allows people to turn the ongoing complexity in the entire world into a situation that can be understood. Sensemaking Therefore, Sensemaking requires articulating the unknown because, in many cases, trying to put meaning to something strange is the only means by which one can understand it. For instance, the occurrence or the origin of COVID-19 in the entire world has been a phenomenon that has disturbed the heads of many trying to understand what it is, where it came from, who caused it, how it can be prevented and how it can be cured. In attempting to understand COVID 19, people came up with the explanations of what it is, what caused it, and that is where the scientists realized that this is a disease that is caused by a virus known as Coronavirus, since the condition merged in the year 2019, the virus was given the name coronavirus 19, and the disease it caused known as COVID 19. This is how sensemaking enables individuals to give meaning to something that can be understood easily by individuals.

The organization that I am familiar with that has experienced a current change in its operations is Starbucks. Starbucks is an American company that is known for its production and sell of coffee products. It was started in 1971 as a coffee selling company where it was majorly involved in roasting, marketing and selling coffee globally. It has more than 300 stores all over the world selling coffee. This organization has sold coffee within its stores since its initiation. However, because of the corona's onset, the management of this organization decided to change its operation to accommodate the changes in the environment depending on the restrictions imposed on businesses by the ministries of health all over the world. Starbucks company reacted to the industry changes brought about by COVID 19, where businesses were required to close their doors to enhance the measures of curbing the spread of coronavirus disease. Thus, the company embraced technology where it introduced Starbucks-pick up only stores that replaced the over 300 stores globally. The new stores required that no one could sit in as they take their coffee. Instead, everyone would be allowed only to take their orders from the store and to avoid congesting people in one place. Starbucks introduced Starbucks pick-up stores that use technology to supply coffee to customers. The business submitted a mobile application when customers could make their orders through the downloaded app and only collect them after confirming that the charges are ready.

Identity construction

Identity construction is a way by an organization that ensures its publicity, so that is identified. Starbucks employed the theory of identity construction by using the social media platforms where it advertised its change to Starbucks pick-up stores which enabled customers to download the Starbucks mobile app that they used to place their orders for coffee. (Fernando, 2020)

Social sensemaking

Social sensemaking is a process of attaining information from others and using it to guide future action. This acts as a protective process. Managing uncertainty requires a reflection on the information obtained from others and an experience. With Starbucks coffee company, the managers of this company relied on data from other businesses on how they had embraced technology to counter the COVID 19 measures and ensure that they flourish irrespective of the restrictions brought about by the coronavirus pandemic. This business had to gain information from other online companies such as amazon.com to gain the knowledge and skills of running a business online; this is why Starbucks approached amazon to come up with Alexa assistance for selling coffee for Starbucks pick up stores. Alexa assistance is a talking app where individuals speak while making Starbucks coffee orders on amazon.com. (Van Biljon, 2017)

Extracted cues

Extracted cues refer to making an opportunity from what happens in the environment and using it as a basis for sensemaking. For instance, during the outbreak of Coronavirus, Starbucks company made an opportunity to learn the behavior of the disease and the measures imposed by the government to curb the spread of COVID 19. From this lesson, Starbucks company decided to change its organization by doing away with the physical stores and embracing the online stores, Starbucks pick-up only stores. The extracted cues from COVID 19 pandemic gave Starbucks the idea of changing the way to do business. This is where the company managers realized that they could operate the business without having physical stores. Therefore, Coronavirus made an opportunity for this business to flourish. (Sturges, 2019)

Ongoing sensemaking

Ongoing sensemaking involves studying what other organizations are doing and making meaning out of it. For this case, during the coronavirus pandemic, Starbucks organization learned what other organizations such as amazon were doing to remain relevant even when there were no physical gatherings allowed. This way, Starbucks also decided after understanding the environment and introducing Starbucks pick-up stores. (Kuo, 2020)

Retrospection

Retrospective sensemaking is where professionals can confront surprising and dubious events; this is a social and an ongoing process where goals and objectives are formed after actions. For this, Starbucks was able to come up with plans, making sense out of the outbreak of Coronavirus in a way that, after the disease, the goal of Starbucks will be remaining an online business to ensure in the case a similar pandemic occurs in future, this business will be safe.

Plausibility

Plausibility sensemaking is where the meaning that is assigned to an experience has to be reasonable. However, such a purpose does not have to meet specific objectives. For this case, the governments' aim of restricting businesses from selling physically to people was to curb the spread of Covid 19; this made Starbucks move to online selling, which does not mean that the online selling will completely curb the spread of Coronavirus. (Einola, 2017)

Enactment

Enactment refers to a representation of a notion that when people act, they bring the structures and events into existence and set them into action. For example, during the outbreak of Coronavirus, Starbucks introduced online sell by opening Starbucks pick up stores. This was set into motion for the business to continue being relevant even in the pandemic times.

References

Fernando, D., & Patriotta, G. (2020). “Us versus them”: Sensemaking and identity processes in skilled migrants’ experiences of occupational downgrading. Journal of World Business, 55(4), 101109.

Van Biljon, J., & Marais, M. (2017, May). Social mapping for collective sensemaking: The case of development informatics researchers in South Africa. In International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries (pp. 280-291). Springer, Cham.

Sturges, J., Clinton, M., Conway, N., & Budjanovcanin, A. (2019). I know where I'm going: Sensemaking and the emergence of calling. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 114, 57-68.

Kuo, E., Hull, M. M., Elby, A., & Gupta, A. (2020). Assessing mathematical sensemaking in physics through the calculation-concept crossover. Physical Review Physics Education Research, 16(2), 020109.

Einola, S., Kohtamäki, M., Parida, V., & Wincent, J. (2017). Retrospective relational sensemaking in R&D offshoring. Industrial Marketing Management, 63, 205-216.