1 1 SENSE MAKING Runze Du Chee Piong BUS 700 Leadership and Creative Solution s Implementation Feb 14th 2021 SENSE MAKING Sensemaking refers to an action or a process of making sense where meaning is given to something. Sensemaking is a process through which individuals give meaning to their collective experiences. Sensemaking is also a process of structuring the unknown by inserting stimuli into some framework kinds to enable individuals to understand or comprehend, attribute, to extrapolate and predict the meaning of something. Sensemaking is an activity that allows people to turn the ongoing complexity in the entire world into a situation that can be understood. Sensemaking Therefore, Sensemaking requires articulating the unknown because, in many cases, trying to put meaning to something strange is the only means by which one can understand it. For instance, the occurrence or the origin of COVID-19 in the entire world has been a phenomenon that has disturbed the heads of many trying to understand what it is, where it came from, who caused it, how it can be prevented and how it can be cured. In attempting to understand COVID 19, people came up with the explanations of what it is, what caused it, and that is where the scientists realized that this is a disease that is caused by a virus known as Coronavirus, since the condition merged in the year 2019, the virus was given the name coronavirus 19, and the disease it caused known as COVID 19. This is how sensemaking enables individuals to give meaning to something that can be understood easily by individuals. The organization that I am familiar with that has experienced a current change in its operations is Starbucks. Starbucks is an American company that is known for its production and sell of coffee products. It was started in 1971 as a coffee selling company where it was majorly involved in roasting, marketing and selling coffee globally. It has more than 300 stores all over the world selling coffee. This organization has sold coffee within its stores since its initiation. However, because of the corona's onset, the management of this organization decided to change its operation to accommodate the changes in the environment depending on the restrictions imposed on businesses by the ministries of health all over the world. Starbucks company reacted to the industry changes brought about by COVID 19, where businesses were required to close their doors to enhance the measures of curbing the spread of coronavirus disease. Thus, the company embraced technology where it introduced Starbucks-pick up only stores that replaced the over 300 stores globally. The new stores required that no one could sit in as they take their coffee. Instead, everyone would be allowed only to take their orders from the store and to avoid congesting people in one place. Starbucks introduced Starbucks pick-up stores that use technology to supply coffee to customers. The business submitted a mobile app ...

1. 1
1
SENSE MAKING
Runze Du
Chee Piong
BUS 700 Leadership and Creative
Solution
s Implementation
Feb 14th 2021

2. SENSE MAKING
Sensemaking refers to an action or a process of making sense
where meaning is given to something. Sensemaking is a process
through which individuals give meaning to their collective
experiences. Sensemaking is also a process of structuring the
unknown by inserting stimuli into some framework kinds to
enable individuals to understand or comprehend, attribute, to
extrapolate and predict the meaning of something. Sensemaking
is an activity that allows people to turn the ongoing complexity
in the entire world into a situation that can be understood.
Sensemaking Therefore, Sensemaking requires articulating the
unknown because, in many cases, trying to put meaning to
something strange is the only means by which one can
understand it. For instance, the occurrence or the origin of
COVID-19 in the entire world has been a phenomenon that has
disturbed the heads of many trying to understand what it is,
where it came from, who caused it, how it can be prevented and
how it can be cured. In attempting to understand COVID 19,
people came up with the explanations of what it is, what caused
it, and that is where the scientists realized that this is a disease
that is caused by a virus known as Coronavirus, since the
condition merged in the year 2019, the virus was given the name
coronavirus 19, and the disease it caused known as COVID 19.
This is how sensemaking enables individuals to give meaning to

3. something that can be understood easily by individuals.
The organization that I am familiar with that has experienced a
current change in its operations is Starbucks. Starbucks is an
American company that is known for its production and sell of
coffee products. It was started in 1971 as a coffee selling
company where it was majorly involved in roasting, marketing
and selling coffee globally. It has more than 300 stores all over
the world selling coffee. This organization has sold coffee
within its stores since its initiation. However, because of the
corona's onset, the management of this organization decided to
change its operation to accommodate the changes in the
environment depending on the restrictions imposed on
businesses by the ministries of health all over the world.
Starbucks company reacted to the industry changes brought
about by COVID 19, where businesses were required to close
their doors to enhance the measures of curbing the spread of
coronavirus disease. Thus, the company embraced technology
where it introduced Starbucks-pick up only stores that replaced
the over 300 stores globally. The new stores required that no
one could sit in as they take their coffee. Instead, everyone
would be allowed only to take their orders from the store and to
avoid congesting people in one place. Starbucks introduced
Starbucks pick-up stores that use technology to supply coffee to
customers. The business submitted a mobile application when
customers could make their orders through the downloaded app

4. and only collect them after confirming that the charges are
ready.
Identity construction
Identity construction is a way by an organization that ensures
its publicity, so that is identified. Starbucks employed the
theory of identity construction by using the social media
platforms where it advertised its change to Starbucks pick-up
stores which enabled customers to download the Starbucks
mobile app that they used to place their orders for coffee.
(Fernando, 2020)
Social sensemaking
Social sensemaking is a process of attaining information from
others and using it to guide future action. This acts as a
protective process. Managing uncertainty requires a reflection
on the information obtained from others and an experience.
With Starbucks coffee company, the managers of this company
relied on data from other businesses on how they had embraced
technology to counter the COVID 19 measures and ensure that
they flourish irrespective of the restrictions brought about by
the coronavirus pandemic. This business had to gain
information from other online companies such as amazon.com
to gain the knowledge and skills of running a business online;
this is why Starbucks approached amazon to come up with
Alexa assistance for selling coffee for Starbucks pick up stores.
Alexa assistance is a talking app where individuals speak while

5. making Starbucks coffee orders on amazon.com. (Van Biljon,
2017)
Extracted cues
Extracted cues refer to making an opportunity from what
happens in the environment and using it as a basis for
sensemaking. For instance, during the outbreak of Coronavirus,
Starbucks company made an opportunity to learn the behavior
of the disease and the measures imposed by the government to
curb the spread of COVID 19. From this lesson, Starbucks
company decided to change its organization by doing away with
the physical stores and embracing the online stores, Starbucks
pick-up only stores. The extracted cues from COVID 19
pandemic gave Starbucks the idea of changing the way to do
business. This is where the company managers realized that they
could operate the business without having physical stores.
Therefore, Coronavirus made an opportunity for this business to
flourish. (Sturges, 2019)
Ongoing sensemaking
Ongoing sensemaking involves studying what other
organizations are doing and making meaning out of it. For this
case, during the coronavirus pandemic, Starbucks organization
learned what other organizations such as amazon were doing to
remain relevant even when there were no physical gatherings
allowed. This way, Starbucks also decided after understanding
the environment and introducing Starbucks pick-up stores.

6. (Kuo, 2020)
Retrospection
Retrospective sensemaking is where professionals can confront
surprising and dubious events; this is a social and an ongoing
process where goals and objectives are formed after actions. For
this, Starbucks was able to come up with plans, making sense
out of the outbreak of Coronavirus in a way that, after the
disease, the goal of Starbucks will be remaining an online
business to ensure in the case a similar pandemic occurs in
future, this business will be safe.
Plausibility
Plausibility sensemaking is where the meaning that is assigned
to an experience has to be reasonable. However, such a purpose
does not have to meet specific objectives. For this case, the
governments' aim of restricting businesses from selling
physically to people was to curb the spread of Covid 19; this
made Starbucks move to online selling, which does not mean
that the online selling will completely curb the spread of
Coronavirus. (Einola, 2017)
Enactment
Enactment refers to a representation of a notion that when
people act, they bring the structures and events into existence
and set them into action. For example, during the outbreak of
Coronavirus, Starbucks introduced online sell by opening
Starbucks pick up stores. This was set into motion for the

7. business to continue being relevant even in the pandemic times.
References
Fernando, D., & Patriotta, G. (2020). “Us versus them”:
Sensemaking and identity processes in skilled migrants’
experiences of occupational downgrading. Journal of World
Business, 55(4), 101109.
Van Biljon, J., & Marais, M. (2017, May). Social mapping for
collective sensemaking: The case of development informatics
researchers in South Africa. In International Conference on
Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries (pp.
280-291). Springer, Cham.

8. Sturges, J., Clinton, M., Conway, N., & Budjanovcanin, A.
(2019). I know where I'm going: Sensemaking and the
emergence of calling. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 114, 57-
68.
Kuo, E., Hull, M. M., Elby, A., & Gupta, A. (2020). Assessing
mathematical sensemaking in physics through the calculation-
concept crossover. Physical Review Physics Education
Research, 16(2), 020109.
Einola, S., Kohtamäki, M., Parida, V., & Wincent, J. (2017).
Retrospective relational sensemaking in R&D offshoring.
Industrial Marketing Management, 63, 205-216.
1
Resistance towards Change in Organization

9. Runze Du
Chee Piong
BUS 700
Jan 31 2021
Resistance towards Change in Organization
Question 1
A change in an organization is inevitable, but even during such
time, it might be resistance by people who are otherwise
expected to support it (Amarantou, Kazakopoulou, Chatzoudes
& Chatzoglou, 2018). When a change is being implemented in
an organization, some symptoms can be encountered, and I have
encountered some of them. One of these symptoms was reduced
staff morale in their mandated duties. Staff was not motivated to
discharge their duties or even increase their productivity. The
second symptom that I have also encountered is low
productivity. This is because of the lost self-motivation and
staff morale. The third symptom that I believe was resistance to
change was paralysis of any decision that was being made. This
is because we're never ready to implement anything that was
linked to the change being implemented.
Question 2
Although I have not experienced any active form of resistance,
there are many occasions when I have experienced a passive

10. form of resistance. This is where people resist a certain change
with no use of violence or force. In this passive resistance, staff
could ignore mandated duties in regard to the change
implementation, and others could fault their duties. Other staff
could complain about the non-functionality of the change being
implemented. It was a form of failing the employer for him to
give up on the change proposed for implementation.
Question 3
The funny hat this happened is that I was a resistor myself. This
was a time when I, among other staff, had to resist a change in
motivation that the employer wanted to put in place. During this
time, the employer wanted to change the reporting in and out
hours for everybody. These hours were too harsh for some
people, but some were for these hours. In this case, the
employer wanted some people to be coming to work late, and
their departure time is shifting into the late evening. Since we
were used to coming to work early, this was quite unfortunate,
and I had to resist myself.
Question 4
The obvious reason for resistance during this time was because
people were being subjected to a tight evening schedule. Most
people valued evening hours with their families. Therefore,
changing report-out hours meant that staff was left with less
time for their families during the evening. The second scenario
where I have seen people resist was when a change in

11. remuneration was being suggested. Besides, I have also seen
staff resist change in adopting new technology that would
render some of their skills obsolete. The last scenario I have
seen resistance was where an organization was considering
outscoring senior officers to play executive management.
Question 5
In my opinion, the top three resistance to change was on
remuneration, outsourcing in executive leadership, and even
adoption of intensive use of technology in production. These
three reasons are top because in some cases, an organizati on
needs to change remuneration, especially to increase the
motivation of staff and as the budget demands. In regard to
management, employees tend to resist change of executive
management because they are afraid of the relationship with a
new executive leader.
Question 6
As a manager, there is a need to understand the common reason
why a change might be resisted by staff. One reason why staff
would resist a change is fear of losing their status in an
organization or fear of their job security. Another staff might
resist change because of a resultant rewards system that
employees might feel is poorly aligned. The third reason why
change may be resisted in an organization is the mistrust of
staff behind the change being suggested. In other cases, a
change is resisted just because of peer influence from one staff

12. to another. Other employees might resist change because they
fear failing while working following the new system.
Question 7
Of all these reasons, I believe the top three are mistrust, fear of
losing a job, and thirdly, fear of being unable to operate in the
new system. To start with mistrust, it isn't easy to buy one's
trust once they realize that certain procedures will not favor
them as long as they wish. With respect to fear of losing one's
status, it becomes difficult to have employees embrace change
while they fear losing their job. This is because they want to
avoid losing more once their job is gone. Those who fear the
new system thinks so because they assume their skill will not be
applicable in the new system, and hence their efficiency might
not be reflected in the new system as in the old and existing
system.
Question 8
Although I have never worked with a company where senior
managers resisted change, I have experienced some. Almost
everyone who ever lived in the US knows about Toys R US, a
giant toy company that failed due to resistance from
management. The company's senor resistance started in 2004
when the management resistance a chance to continue
collaboration with amazon. During this time, the company
missed the opportunity to establish its e-platform; its footprint
on the internet was surpassed too far by giants like Amazon.

13. Finally, the company collapsed (Chavie, 2018), retrievable from
https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/10/3/17932344/toys-r-us-
liquidation-coming-back.
Question 9
If I were a Toys R US manager, I would not have rejected the
continuation collaboration with Amazon. This is to avoid being
so much interested in short-run benefit while foregoing the long
term benefits in the organization. Therefore, I would have
encouraged this collaboration to help Toys R US establish its e-
commerce footprint early on time and remain relevant even in
the cloud space. If this action was taken during this time, the
company would have been successful even today.
Question 10
Different approaches to management can be used in different
case scenarios. One that excites and attracts me the moment is
step-wise change implementation. This approach dictates
implementation change in faces rather than a one-time
implementation. This approach is effete because it gives staff
enough time to learn what is being done and what is being
changed. Therefore, they develop new skills and improve on
their skills regarding the change being implemented. This
approach is effective because it acquires more support for the
staff, and hence resistance is minimal (Thakur & Srivastava,
2018).
Question 11

14. The reason why this excites me the most is that it allows for
ample time for negotiations. This implies that when employees
do not have trust with a certain stage of change implementation,
it is broken down and explained to them. Although this
approach might be time-consuming, it facilitates bit to bit
gaining of trust from staff to support the implementation.
REFERENCES:
Amarantou, V., Kazakopoulou, S., Chatzoudes, D., &

15. Chatzoglou, P. (2018). Resistance to change: an empirical
investigation of its antecedents. Journal of Organizational
Change Management.
Thakur, R. R., & Srivastava, S. (2018). From resistance to
readiness: The role of mediating variables. Journal of
Organizational Change Management.
https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/10/3/17932344/toys-r-us-
liquidation-coming-back
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5
Downsizing
Runze Du
BUS 700 Leadership and Creative