Chapter 4: Retrospective Sense Making
I'm in love with this concept. For every time I've said to myself, "hindsight is 20/20," and for all of the time I've spent looking back on the course of my life trying to make sense of the plans that succeeded verses the ones that didn't... I can now say that the flaw was not in my planning, but in my thinking.
How can we realistically and accurately plan, or decide, how we will act in a given situation when we have no way of knowing what the situation will be like once we get there? And if we create these ideas of how we "should" behave then aren't we only setting ourselves up for disappointment when we don't live up to those preconceived expectations? It seems to me that by not allowing ourselves to "think backward" in order to learn about ourselves, we are perpetuating a cycle in which our "forward thinking" forces us to criticize and condemn our actions as "wrong" every time we don't live up to our perceived potential.
I've never quite known how to reconcile between the things I thought I would do or say, and what I actually do or say. How many times has anyone thought "why did I just do/say that?" or "what was I thinking?" Maybe that is the beauty of it all; the person we think we are doesn't really exist. If who we are in isolation isn't always the person that expresses itself in public, than which one is real and which one is trying to impress who? More importantly, do we really need to "know who we are" in order to make appropriate decisions? Shouldn't we place more importance on discovering the meaning of our actions, as Weick suggests, than on acting "right"?
In the context of organizational communication, I think the book says it best on page 116: "The manager in Weick's model is a manipulator of symbols who motivates employees to make sense of their work life." Based on what I have learned and experienced, this statement is the fundamental principle of effective management, from which all other ideas about work, job satisfaction, productivity, loyalty, ownership, and happiness can be realized.
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Your reaction seems to be very appropriate to the description that the book gave about symbolic interaction. I went through the very same chapter, and other things stood out to me more. After reading your blog entry I understand the importance of these ideals in a different way, but still interesting that our reactions to the material could be so different... just a thought.
ReplyDeleteGreat blog and I'm loving the enthusiasm. Here's your statement that I like best from your blog: "I can now say that the flaw was not in my planning, but in my thinking". You know what, I agree. I myself have been in situations where I blamed my planning rather than my thinking. I'm a kind of person who always plan ahead and have a to do list. When I fail my to do list, I blame my planning; my usual alibi is because I overprogrammed. However, if I really think about it, I usually fail to follow my plan when I procrastinate and do other things.
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