The Collapse of Sensemaking in Organizations: The Mann Gulch Disaster 9/20/2018

The Mann Gulch Disaster Why do organizations unravel? How can organizations be made more resilient? Let’s start with what happened: What are the major features of this incident? 9/20/2018

Maclean’s Question about the Disaster What the structure of a small outfit should be when its business is to meet sudden danger and present disaster. What the smoke jumping crew an organization? Interlocking routines Simple structure (much like an entrepreneurial firm) Generic subjectivity 9/20/2018

Unsuspected Vulnerability Sudden losses of meaning Cosmology episode Vu jade – outstripping your past experience Sensemaking – reality is an ongoing accomplishment that emerges from efforts to create order and make retrospective sense of what occurs The 10:00 fire example 9/20/2018

When did Dodge lose leadership? Crew got confused ‘Throw away your tools!’ Panic Yet these members had confronted danger before. . . But not as a member of a disintegrating group Lost their framework (cosmos) and found chaos Threat-rigidity 9/20/2018

How does this relate to business? “The recipe for disorganization in Mann Gulch is not all that rare in everyday life. The recipe reads, thrust people into unfamiliar roles, leave some key roles unfilled, make the task more ambiguous, discredit the role system, and make all of these changes in an context in which small events can combine into something monstrous.” 9/20/2018

So, what can we learn about resilience? Four sources Improvisation & Bricolage Virtual Role Systems The Attitude of Wisdom Respectful Interaction 9/20/2018

Improvisation & Bricolage We don’t expect creativity under intense pressure (threat-rigidity) Creativity – figuring out how to use what you already know in order to go beyond what you currently think Bricoleur – being able to create order out of whatever materials were at hand 9/20/2018

Virtual Role Systems Each member mentally takes all roles Holographic – each member can reconstitute the group and take whatever role is needed 9/20/2018

The Attitude of Wisdom “The more we learn about a particular domain, the greater the number of uncertainties, doubts, questions, and complexities.” (The Silence of the Skies) Extreme confidence and Extreme caution preclude Curiosity, openness, complex sensing 9/20/2018

Respectful Interaction We need trust, honesty & self-respect We also need social support What are devices of mitigation? (Tenerife & Air Florida 90) When formal structure collapses, is anything left? 9/20/2018

Structures for Resilience Communication Ways to rebuild frameworks and meaning What was the structure of the smoke jumpers? There are few safe environments What structure allows people to meet sudden danger, who builds and maintains it? 9/20/2018

Leaders Do! Excellent team leaders spend more time team building Excellent team leaders listen Excellent team leaders use a range of styles What did Dodge do wrong? 9/20/2018

Meaning 9/20/2018

Take Away Message “To understand how language works, what pitfalls it conceals, what its possibilities are is to understand a central aspect of the complicated business of living the life of a human being. To be concerned with the relation between language and reality, between words and what they stand for in the speaker’s or the hearer’s thoughts and emotions is to approach the study of language as both an intellectual and a moral discipline.” 9/20/2018

What are we concerned with? Truth of statements Adequacy of statements Trustworthiness of statements Semantics: The study of human interaction through communication. Central assumption: cooperation is preferable to conflict. 9/20/2018

Language and Survival Most of the time we are drawing upon the experiences of others in order to make up for what we ourselves have missed. Animals communicate with a few limited cries, we have the full power of language at our command. We differ in that we can make statements about statements. In short, language can be about language. 9/20/2018

Language and Survival We use language to: However, words are tricky Cooperate Pool knowledge However, words are tricky The Niagara of Words They can mean different things Yet, we are involved with these words. 9/20/2018

Language and Survival What are our unconscious assumptions about language? What is the relationship of language to reality? Words shape our beliefs, prejudices, ideals, aspirations 9/20/2018

Symbols Signal Reaction: a complete and invariable reaction that occurs whether or not the conditions warrant. Symbol Reaction: a delayed reaction, conditional upon the circumstances. We may try to avoid, but the rejection of symbols is, in itself, symbolic. 9/20/2018

Symbols Symbols and things symbolized are independent of each other. Yet, we find connections. The symbols of piety, of civic virtue, or of patriotism are often prized above actual piety, civic virtue or patriotism. 9/20/2018

Maps and Territories The symbol the thing symbolized The map IS NOT the territory The word the thing 9/20/2018

Maps and Territories Verbal World: the world we come to know through words. Extensional World: the world we know through our own experience. This verbal world ought to stand in relation to the extensional world as a map does to the territory it is supposed to represent. 9/20/2018

Maps and Territories How does the territory differ from a map? Verbal World Reports Map Extensional World Experience Territory How good is an inaccurate map? 9/20/2018

Maps and Territories Three ways to get a false map: They are given to us By making them up for ourselves by misreading true maps By constructing them ourselves by misreading territories 9/20/2018

Reports, Inferences, & Judgments Reports are verifiable, exclude inferences, judgments, and loaded words Verifiable – yet we often trust without verifying Inferences – a statement about the unknown based on the known Judgments – expressions of the speaker’s approval or disapproval of the occurrences, persons or object he is describing 9/20/2018

Reports, Inferences, & Judgments Verifiability rests upon the external observation of facts, not upon the heaping of judgments. Many words simultaneously report and judge Judgments stop thought, how? Snarl words and purr words report the state of our internal worlds. Slanting is using implied judgments How can we ever give an impartial report? 9/20/2018

Contexts How do words mean? Guided by historical record, but not bound by it, because new situations, experiences, inventions, feelings are always compelling us to give new uses to old words. Verbal Context – understanding in relation to other words Physical and Social Context – understanding in relation to situation 9/20/2018

Contexts Extensional Meaning: something that cannot be expressed in words because it is that which the words stands for. It’s the territory!! Intentional Meaning: that which is suggested (connoted) inside one’s head. 9/20/2018

The One Word One Meaning Fallacy NO WORD EVER HAS EXACTLY THE SAME MEANING TWICE First, if contexts determine meaning, there are never two exactly the same contexts Second, everyone’s meanings are from their experiences (chair) Third, in terms of extensional meaning, it always is changing Contexts often indicate our meanings so clearly that we do not even have to say what we mean in order to be understood! 9/20/2018

Ignoring Contexts If we can get deeply into our consciousness the principle that no word ever has the same meaning twice, we will develop the habit of automatically examining contexts, and this enables us to understand better what others are saying. 9/20/2018

Take Away Message “To understand how language works, what pitfalls it conceals, what its possibilities are is to understand a central aspect of the complicated business of living the life of a human being. To be concerned with the relation between language and reality, between words and what they stand for in the speaker’s or the hearer’s thoughts and emotions is to approach the study of language as both an intellectual and a moral discipline.” 9/20/2018