Introduction to managing and organising
Lesson 1 – opening, thinking, contextualizing
Managing & managerialism
• Making sense of managing as a coherent set of assumptions, concepts, values, and
practices that constitute a way of viewing reality
• Managing entails sensemaking and framing –
you already have ideas that you project to the world
• Managerialism – a claim to special expertise premised on managerial rationality
characterizing organizations
means: you think you can manage people, company based on rational decisions,
because you have the expertise in economics for example
Making sense of managing
• We can differentiate managing as a practice, as something that we do, from
organizations as goal-oriented collectives, entities in which we are organized
• Management is the process of communicating, coordinating and accomplishing
action in the pursuit of organizational objectives
• Managing collaborative relationships with stakeholders, technologies and other
artefacts, both within as well as between organizations and managing more or less
considerate relationships with those employed as well as with those encountered as
suppliers, customers, communities, and so on
• Management is not a neutral activity !
• Management cannot simply be considered in terms of its capacity to deliver objective
gains in productivity/efficiency
• It is also a socio-political activity, which implies the need to adhere to societal,
political and ethical responsibilities
This is calles sensemaking
• For the past 40 years, the predominant sense of what an organization should be has
been modelled on lean and efficient private sector organizations that are profit
oriented
• In such organizations, top management teams strive to set a common frame so that
organizational members, customers, suppliers, investors, and so on, can make
common sense of the organization – what it is and what it does
• This is called sensemaking
Sense-making
• Sensemaking is the process through which individuals and groups give meaning to
something, especially to explain novel, unexpected or confusing events
,Sense-making in a capitalist system
• Making sense of profit orientation?
• Does it make sense to you?
• The art of making sense of your work (proud to working for Apple, Google or another
‘hip’ company
• Dare to challenge the narrative of selling company! (Projection of an image that may
not be reality)
• Dare to challenge the narrative of your manager!
• We are constantly making sense, revising past rationalizations in the light of new
information, knowledge and events not previously available
• Meaning is constructed in an ongoing process in which past experience informs the
present (Maitlis and Christianson, 2014).
Sense-making – be critical
• Stuff happens (zie link youtube in ppt)
Managing in a complex world
• A ‘one size fits all’ management approach will not work. Contemporary managers can
no longer rely on hierarchy and nominal roles to manage people
• Managing has become an increasingly difficult, political and challenging endeavour
• People work in complex organizations that are embedded in contexts inscribed by
complex networks
• Managers should have understanding of (human) complexity
Sensemaking and framing
• Managers manage through processes of:
o Sense making
o Sense giving
Sense breaking
• A key part of the managers’ role is to ‘frame’ the sense that others have of the roles
that they play in the organization
• As social realities of business and organizations change, the different sense and
framing is required
• Much of managing is discursive: issuing orders, making suggestions, framing actions
in order to accomplish objectives
,Managing & framing
• While the sense you make is always your sense it is never made in isolation. Not only
is sense made through the language and concepts you use but also through the many
cues that prompt you to make sense: experience, what others say they think is
happening, likely stories that you are familiar with that seem to fit the pattern that
appears to be forming
• People will not use these cues in a uniform way, because they are individuals and, as
a result, people can make wildly different sense of the same set of cues
Framing
• Framing is a term that comes from film making: a director frames a shot by including
some detail and omitting other elements
• A frame defines what is relevant. All managing involves framing: separating that
which deserves focus from that which does not. One thing that managers do all the
time is to differentiate between the relevant and the irrelevant
• Framing involves the creation of devices that assign meaning to organizational
situations (Fairhurst, 1993)
• Framing entails the ideational use of metaphors, the repetition of stories, the citing
of traditions, the articulation of slogans and the material creation of artefacts to
highlight or contrast a particular organizational issue (Deetz et al., 2000)
Framing – sense-breaking & sense – giving
• Framing is what leaders do, especially when they are seeking to reframe in the case
of organizational change (Fairhurst and Sarr, 1996)
• Framing mobilizes followers through the judicious use of images, symbols and
language.
• Framing occurs not only through sensemaking but also through sensebreaking and
sensegiving.
, Managerial rationality
• Some managers argue that they can make decisions based on management on their
managerial competence, its called managerialism
• But is this possible?
• Management as in ideology?
• No because within an organization management goes beyond managing financial
capital
• What about symbolic capital (reputation), social capital (set of relations
• Organizations have professionalized workflows YET organizations are full of stories
(rumour, gossip, official statements, business plans, etc)
• Managerialism as an ideology
• Economic rationalism and its metaphors
• Organization stories
• Rationality is always contextually and cognitively limited: bounded rationality
• Managing and organizations are constantly changing
• Resistance to change is to be expected
• Rational managers never have perfect knowledge of the situation
• A belief in rationality – a myth?
Changing pradigms
• The digital age:
o Digital technologies and a growing international division of labour between
economies make the world economy increasingly globalized, although subject
to pressures to deglobalization from trade wars, pandemics and political
responses to them
o Contemporary competition is based less on traditional comparative
advantage as a result of what economists call ‘factor endowments’, such as
being close to raw materials, and more on competitive advantages that arise
from innovation and enterprise
o The fourth industrial revolution: algorithmic innovation, the gig economy,
digital nomads, working from home, etc.
Lesson 1 – opening, thinking, contextualizing
Managing & managerialism
• Making sense of managing as a coherent set of assumptions, concepts, values, and
practices that constitute a way of viewing reality
• Managing entails sensemaking and framing –
you already have ideas that you project to the world
• Managerialism – a claim to special expertise premised on managerial rationality
characterizing organizations
means: you think you can manage people, company based on rational decisions,
because you have the expertise in economics for example
Making sense of managing
• We can differentiate managing as a practice, as something that we do, from
organizations as goal-oriented collectives, entities in which we are organized
• Management is the process of communicating, coordinating and accomplishing
action in the pursuit of organizational objectives
• Managing collaborative relationships with stakeholders, technologies and other
artefacts, both within as well as between organizations and managing more or less
considerate relationships with those employed as well as with those encountered as
suppliers, customers, communities, and so on
• Management is not a neutral activity !
• Management cannot simply be considered in terms of its capacity to deliver objective
gains in productivity/efficiency
• It is also a socio-political activity, which implies the need to adhere to societal,
political and ethical responsibilities
This is calles sensemaking
• For the past 40 years, the predominant sense of what an organization should be has
been modelled on lean and efficient private sector organizations that are profit
oriented
• In such organizations, top management teams strive to set a common frame so that
organizational members, customers, suppliers, investors, and so on, can make
common sense of the organization – what it is and what it does
• This is called sensemaking
Sense-making
• Sensemaking is the process through which individuals and groups give meaning to
something, especially to explain novel, unexpected or confusing events
,Sense-making in a capitalist system
• Making sense of profit orientation?
• Does it make sense to you?
• The art of making sense of your work (proud to working for Apple, Google or another
‘hip’ company
• Dare to challenge the narrative of selling company! (Projection of an image that may
not be reality)
• Dare to challenge the narrative of your manager!
• We are constantly making sense, revising past rationalizations in the light of new
information, knowledge and events not previously available
• Meaning is constructed in an ongoing process in which past experience informs the
present (Maitlis and Christianson, 2014).
Sense-making – be critical
• Stuff happens (zie link youtube in ppt)
Managing in a complex world
• A ‘one size fits all’ management approach will not work. Contemporary managers can
no longer rely on hierarchy and nominal roles to manage people
• Managing has become an increasingly difficult, political and challenging endeavour
• People work in complex organizations that are embedded in contexts inscribed by
complex networks
• Managers should have understanding of (human) complexity
Sensemaking and framing
• Managers manage through processes of:
o Sense making
o Sense giving
Sense breaking
• A key part of the managers’ role is to ‘frame’ the sense that others have of the roles
that they play in the organization
• As social realities of business and organizations change, the different sense and
framing is required
• Much of managing is discursive: issuing orders, making suggestions, framing actions
in order to accomplish objectives
,Managing & framing
• While the sense you make is always your sense it is never made in isolation. Not only
is sense made through the language and concepts you use but also through the many
cues that prompt you to make sense: experience, what others say they think is
happening, likely stories that you are familiar with that seem to fit the pattern that
appears to be forming
• People will not use these cues in a uniform way, because they are individuals and, as
a result, people can make wildly different sense of the same set of cues
Framing
• Framing is a term that comes from film making: a director frames a shot by including
some detail and omitting other elements
• A frame defines what is relevant. All managing involves framing: separating that
which deserves focus from that which does not. One thing that managers do all the
time is to differentiate between the relevant and the irrelevant
• Framing involves the creation of devices that assign meaning to organizational
situations (Fairhurst, 1993)
• Framing entails the ideational use of metaphors, the repetition of stories, the citing
of traditions, the articulation of slogans and the material creation of artefacts to
highlight or contrast a particular organizational issue (Deetz et al., 2000)
Framing – sense-breaking & sense – giving
• Framing is what leaders do, especially when they are seeking to reframe in the case
of organizational change (Fairhurst and Sarr, 1996)
• Framing mobilizes followers through the judicious use of images, symbols and
language.
• Framing occurs not only through sensemaking but also through sensebreaking and
sensegiving.
, Managerial rationality
• Some managers argue that they can make decisions based on management on their
managerial competence, its called managerialism
• But is this possible?
• Management as in ideology?
• No because within an organization management goes beyond managing financial
capital
• What about symbolic capital (reputation), social capital (set of relations
• Organizations have professionalized workflows YET organizations are full of stories
(rumour, gossip, official statements, business plans, etc)
• Managerialism as an ideology
• Economic rationalism and its metaphors
• Organization stories
• Rationality is always contextually and cognitively limited: bounded rationality
• Managing and organizations are constantly changing
• Resistance to change is to be expected
• Rational managers never have perfect knowledge of the situation
• A belief in rationality – a myth?
Changing pradigms
• The digital age:
o Digital technologies and a growing international division of labour between
economies make the world economy increasingly globalized, although subject
to pressures to deglobalization from trade wars, pandemics and political
responses to them
o Contemporary competition is based less on traditional comparative
advantage as a result of what economists call ‘factor endowments’, such as
being close to raw materials, and more on competitive advantages that arise
from innovation and enterprise
o The fourth industrial revolution: algorithmic innovation, the gig economy,
digital nomads, working from home, etc.
