Sensemaking in a Time of Emergence With Dr. Deborah Ancona

The world is rapidly changing around us. As we move into the second quarter of 2025,  sensemaking is a tool that can help leaders and organizations orient themselves to navigate the emerging future. Back in 2021, Kate Ebner and MIT professor Deborah Ancona met for a fascinating conversation about how to think about and structure the unknown so that we can act in it. Four years later, we have a different set of circumstances, yet the sensemaking framework continues to resonate.

Uncertain times require new leadership capabilities, including the ability to make sense of an ever-changing context. Dr. Ancona shares three practical strategies for learning how to use sensemaking to gain confidence and direction. Read a summary of the podcast episode below, or click the button below to listen to the full episode!

In this podcast, Dr. Deborah Ancona elaborates on the concept of sensemaking, a framework for understanding the context in which you’re operating. The term has been brought into organizational work by Carl Weich, and it is particularly important in a fast-changing environment, where the status-quo is consistently being upended and leaders are unsure what direction to take. Because of the speed of change, we are constantly having to ask ourselves, what’s going on out there?

We typically think of sensemaking as having four key aspects. The first is being open to the external environment and what has changed. It can be easy to get locked into your view of what you think the environment looks like, the competitors or the latest technology. In this first step, it is important to raise your head and take stock of what is changing around you.

Next, to learn about what is happening, you have to collect data about the environment. This could be through observation, interviews, or focus groups. Then, you’ll need to consolidate the data to identify patterns and trends.

The final step in the sensemaking process is experimenting to update and improve the model over time. Carl Weich describes sensemaking as map-making, likening the leader to a cartographer who pulls together all these disparate pieces of data into something that makes sense, a map that others can read.

The pace of change has continued to accelerate during the pandemic and in the post-pandemic years, making sensemaking even more critical for leaders. Dr. Ancona emphasizes that a plausible working story is more important than a perfect roadmap, as the environment is constantly changing.

Leaders can help get everyone in their organization involved in sensemaking by signaling that it’s important, modeling it themselves, and creating opportunities for collective sensemaking. Leaders can gather data from many sources, including experts, customers, competitors, collaborators, and their own employees. Sensemaking is an ongoing process leaders can work to embed in their organization's culture.

To learn more about Deborah’s work, you can find some references of her current work on the Harvard Business Publishing website, or explore her bio on the MIT Sloan website.

Leading the Emergence is a podcast sponsored by the Nebo Company that ran in 2020 and 2021. We are in the process of reviving this content and working on new podcast episodes, so stay tuned! If you would like to talk to Nebo about how to support the leaders in your organization, contact us or visit nebocompany.com

Download the SIRA Framework (Situation, Implications, Recommendations, Actions) and ensure your leadership teams are having regular, sensemaking conversations.