Driven by Plausibility rather than Accuracy

Earlier in this chapter we referred to enactment whereby organisational members both form part of their environment and also create the constraints and opportunities which they face. The consequence of enacted environments also develops into an individual’s ‘plausible map’ where observed actions are cognitively plotted against observed outcomes. The new experiences are influenced by expectations and old experiences become categorised (Weick, 1988).

Even if accuracy were important, executives seldom produce it. From the

standpoint of sensemaking, that is no big problem. The strength of sensemaking as a perspective derives from the fact that it does not rely on accuracy and its model is not object perception. Instead, sensemaking is about plausibility, pragmatics, coherence, reasonableness, creation, invention, and instrumentality. (Weick, 1995, p. 57)

Accuracy is secondary to plausibility in any analysis of sensemaking. Individuals and organisations are exposed to multiple cues, with multiple meanings, and need to be able to appropriately filter, interpret and act upon the mass of information (Bettis & Prahalad, 1995; Craig-Lees, 2001; Weick, 1995).

Man in his daily life is only partially – and we dare say exceptionally – interested in the clarity of his knowledge, i.e., in all insight into the relations between the elements of his world and the general principles ruling those relations

…Furthermore, he does not search for the truth and does not quest for certainty. All he wants is information on likelihood and insight into the chances or risks which the situation at hand entails for the outcome of his actions. (Schutz, 1970, p. 76)

The development of a ‘plausible map’ concerns knowledge as a tacit understanding that has been acquired through learning, practice and experience. This knowledge influences the quality of one’s performance which relates not only to the quality of the knowledge that one possesses, but also to the certainty to which one believes they know (Hunt, 2003).

In being driven by plausibility one is looking for cues to substantiate one’s sensemaking, where there is a continuous process of reinforcing and elaboration of activities in order to strengthen knowledge (Bechky & Okhuysen, 2011). This also helps to reduce the risk in the distortion or elimination of what is accurate (Mills et al., 2010) or having a ‘sure-but- wrong belief’ (Hunt, 2003, p. 105).

From a project perspective, this highlights the need to consistently evaluate the effectiveness benefits of projects which are intangible (Nogeste & Walker, 2005), concerns ‘subjective judgement from different perspectives’ (Müller & Jugdev, 2012, p. 768) and change and evolve over time (Bennington & Baccarini, 2004).

An example of the change in effectiveness benefits is the case of the London Millennium Dome. Its construction met all the criteria in terms of time, cost and scope when it opened on New Year’s Eve to celebrate the new millennium and described as a major achievement. However during its first year of operation it experienced severe financial difficulties and eventually ceased operations. The financial difficulties were largely due to a shortfall in income caused by negative perceptions about the dome and lack of awareness of its content (National Audit Office, 2000). The regeneration and opening of the Dome in 2007, now known as The O2, has since ‘become a highly successful

entertainment venue and a beacon for a new community on the Peninsula’ (National Audit Office, 2008, p7).

Respondents described how they used a ‘divide-conquer’ approach to their projects in order to obtain a ‘high level…picture’ (#7) or took a ‘levelled’ approach by obtaining a ‘first level…understanding…’ and then to ‘…drill into detail...to tackle the problem, by problem’ (#9).

Respondent #11 also spoke about not getting too involved in details and accuracy by ‘sensing’ the limitations of the team in terms of knowledge resources and how this would affect the project delivery. There was the capacity in ‘…outsourcing particular parts or components of this project to a specialist’ rather than getting the team to ‘focus’ on something ‘which is not their strength’. The respondent did emphasise that

‘…they could have done it, if they wanted. Yeah. But it would have been a strain on them, so rather than putting the strain on them, what we did was, we identified some people … to come in, just to do that part.’

Plausibility may also lead to inconsistency within the organisation since different meanings may be regarded as plausible by different stakeholders with respect to a common event, action or policy (Mills et al., 2010).

One scenario encountered by respondent #9 concerned a transformation project. As a global initiative directed by the European headquarters, there were many operational and regulatory issues in Asia and a lack of common understanding on product deployment:

‘We haven’t really gone into detail, what needs to be prepared, discuss with Compliance, discuss with Legal, and then we discuss with regulator. So we need to prepare a lot of material, assessment ourselves, and in particular some enhancements required back to the system as well.’ (#9)

In addition to unexpected events, there has been a suggestion that sensemaking may be triggered by either positive or negative emotions whereby plausibility is substantiated by reducing equivocality or facilitating practical action to move things forward (Maitlis et al., 2013; Weick, 1995). The provision of plausible alternatives may come from contrived mental dialogues between oneself and other stakeholders. This dialogue is guided by an individual’s schema which serves to evaluate past and present experiences, as well as facilitate expectations for the future (Harris, 1994).

Respondent #7 spoke about the lack of the full picture due to the complexity of the project and lack of stakeholder support. This did not, however, stop him from delivering projects since they were able to ‘grasp a sense’ of the requirements in order to work on a solution. The respondent also described how one made do with the information in hand due to lack of resources ‘if you want to know more, you can always talk to people…The usual will be we don’t have enough time!’

Respondent #14 also described having to make do with only limited knowledge where

‘you have to bridge the gap…to try to understand what they are trying to do with very limited information and then trying best use of your knowledge that you know about what the system can offer on a functionality wise and then provide some options, or solutions to them.’

The above situation of identifying plausible solutions is depicted by March and Simon (1958) and their concept of bounded rationality. Here in knowledge intensive environments characterised by overload, ambiguity and politics, members aim for satisfactory outcomes rather than seek to achieve an optimal solution (Haas, 2006).