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

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.

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