What Is Collective Sensemaking?<\/h2>\n
Sensemaking is the act of pausing to reflect on a situation or challenge and creating shared understanding amid complexity and chaos. Like leadership, sensemaking too is a social process, one which is most productive when leaders come together as a team to engage in collaborative inquiry, exploring perceptions of current reality to create situational awareness.<\/p>\n
Building a collective understanding of the problems that need solving helps leaders generate potential solutions and decide what to do. This process requires senior leadership teams to commit to immersing themselves in facilitated, reflective dialogue.<\/p>\n
The 3 Steps to Collective Sensemaking<\/h2>\n
Drawing on decades of experience with senior teams, we guide leaders through 3 sensemaking steps that bring clarity and purposeful action for collective problem-solving that addresses their organization\u2019s most complex challenges. These steps are:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Framing<\/strong> current reality by naming the challenges confronting the organization<\/li>\n
- Assessing<\/strong> and exploring the most problematic challenges (taking a \u201cdeeper dive\u201d)<\/li>\n
- Generating<\/strong> responses, actions, and solutions from the discussion<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
Below, we offer questions to help structure the conversation during the first 2 steps to provoke deeper thought and richer discussions. Putting the challenges in the center of the conversation and resisting the temptation to go into solution mode is required to get the most out of the dialogue.<\/p>\n
That gets flipped with Step 3, where the discussion moves from articulating the situation to determining what to do about it \u2014 with the goal to emerge with specific actions and commitments for collective problem-solving. Here\u2019s a closer look at each step.<\/p>\n
Framing Current Reality<\/h3>\n
The process of framing is designed to develop a collective understanding of the current reality, the associated challenges, and any unknowns or issues that haven\u2019t been discussed. This can be accomplished by addressing 4 questions:<\/p>\n
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- How are today\u2019s challenges presenting threats?<\/li>\n
- How are today\u2019s challenges presenting opportunities?<\/li>\n
- How are the challenges we\u2019re encountering familiar?<\/li>\n
- How are we challenged in ways for which we have no prior experience?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
![\"Essential](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/essential-sensemaking-questions-to-frame-reality-infographic-ccl.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nThere is no specific order for discussing these questions. A second round of questions helps the senior leadership team go deeper to articulate what\u2019s confronting them:<\/p>\n
- \n
- What are the sources of threats, and how might we recast them as opportunities?<\/li>\n
- What do we need to do to bring opportunities forward?<\/li>\n
- What do we need to do to ensure we\u2019re capitalizing on our strengths?<\/li>\n
- What capabilities do we need to develop to address challenges for which we have no experience?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Once the team has fully addressed these questions and created a shared understanding of their current reality, it\u2019s time to advance the conversation to assessing the current state and determining how they can respond to the challenges.<\/p>\n
Assessing Key Challenges<\/h3>\n
To further unpack the challenges that have been identified through framing, here are 2 approaches that can deepen the conversation:<\/p>\n
Using our Direction \u2013 Alignment \u2013 Commitment (DAC)\u2122 model<\/strong><\/a>, senior leadership teams can explore the extent to which they are making leadership happen in the context of the current state and the associated challenges. In the spirit of continuing with dialogue throughout this process, the team responds to 3 questions:<\/p>\n
- \n
- To what extent do we have clarity of vision and agreement on the overall goals? (Direction)<\/li>\n
- To what extent is work coordinated and integrated? (Alignment)<\/li>\n
- To what extent do we act with mutual responsibility for the whole to make the success and wellbeing of the organization the priority? (Commitment)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
![\"Using](\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/using-dac-to-assess-key-challenges-infographic-ccl.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nBy completing a DAC assessment<\/a>, the team can identify areas that may be compounding the challenges and require strengthening. This dialogue produces useful insights that can be carried into the third generating step.<\/p>\n
The second framework that can deepen conversation is polarity thinking<\/strong>, which helps identify whether the senior leadership team is looking at a problem to be solved or a polarity to be managed<\/a>. Many of the challenges that teams are facing today have multiple solutions and defy the notion of the \u201cone best answer.\u201d<\/p>\n
In such cases, the conversation needs to move from \u201ceither \/ or<\/em>\u201d to \u201cboth \/ and<\/em>,\u201d and now the team is dealing with polarities. Also described as managing a paradox<\/a>, conundrum, or contradiction, a polarity is a dilemma that\u2019s ongoing, unsolvable, and contains seemingly opposing ideas.<\/p>\n
To explore a polarity, the team conducts a facilitated discussion with the following structure:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Articulate the 2 \u201cpoles\u201d that seem to be competing or at odds. <\/strong>For example, requiring all employees to work in the company office spaces or<\/em> allowing hybrid \/ remote employees.<\/li>\n
- Explore the positive outcomes and potential upsides<\/strong> from focusing on one pole over the other.<\/li>\n
- Explore the negative outcomes and possible downsides<\/strong> of focusing on one pole over the other.<\/li>\n
- Identify how to gain and maintain the positive results from each polarity, and the early warning signs to watch for <\/strong>if embarking into the downsides of each.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
The exercise ultimately provides greater insights into the multiple facets of challenges as well as sets the team up for arriving at conclusions on how best to lead the organization through the complexity they\u2019re encountering.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n
Generating Actions and Solutions<\/h3>\n
Some senior leadership teams may be satisfied with framing<\/em> their current reality and stop there, while others may choose to invest more time assessing<\/em>. Regardless of the amount of time and effort that goes into the sensemaking exercise, it\u2019s important to save some brainpower and collective mindshare for getting tactical and generating<\/em> actions to take from the session to implement collective problem-solving. This discussion takes shape in 3 steps:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Review:<\/strong> Inventory the outputs from the conversations, identifying the key takeaways and insights.<\/li>\n
- Reflect: <\/strong>Discuss the themes and patterns that emerge from the insights and identify what needs to happen to activate what is emerging.<\/li>\n
- Apply:<\/strong> List specific decisions and actions that need to come from the sensemaking session, with owners, dates, and follow-up tactics.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
Becoming a Sustainably Adaptive Organization<\/h2>\n
- Reflect: <\/strong>Discuss the themes and patterns that emerge from the insights and identify what needs to happen to activate what is emerging.<\/li>\n
- Explore the positive outcomes and potential upsides<\/strong> from focusing on one pole over the other.<\/li>\n
- Articulate the 2 \u201cpoles\u201d that seem to be competing or at odds. <\/strong>For example, requiring all employees to work in the company office spaces or<\/em> allowing hybrid \/ remote employees.<\/li>\n
- Assessing<\/strong> and exploring the most problematic challenges (taking a \u201cdeeper dive\u201d)<\/li>\n