S01 /
See without assumptions
Look at the business as a customer, team member and informed outsider. Begin with what is visible, understandable and experienced.
How We Think /
We begin by understanding, not adding.
Sensemaking is a practice. A way of noticing what a business has stopped seeing about itself. The section below outlines the beliefs the work rests on, and the method that follows from them.
Beliefs /
What we hold to be true.
01 /
Businesses often add before they understand.
Every business has a version of the meeting where a new campaign is agreed before the previous one has been examined.
02 /
A visible problem may not be the real problem.
A drop in enquiries can begin far upstream: an unclear position, a lost moment of trust, a promise the experience no longer honours.
03 /
Better decisions begin with better questions.
The right question narrows what matters. It removes options that were never real.
04 /
The customer's experience is evidence.
What they say, do and quietly walk away from is data. It is not to be filtered through the story the business tells itself.
05 /
Clarity is not simplification for appearance.
It is understanding what matters. Simplifying without understanding produces a tidy surface and a confused strategy.
06 /
Removing can be more strategic than adding.
A great deal of work exists because it once mattered, not because it still does.
The SENSE Method /
Five moves from noticing to committing.
E02 /
Examine the disconnects
Intention and perception. Brand and business. Promise and experience. Activity and outcome. Leadership assumptions and customer reality.
N03 /
Name what is really happening
Give the underlying issue a clear name. An unnamed problem is often solved at the wrong level.
S04 /
Strip away the unnecessary
Remove noise, duplicated work, inherited assumptions and activity that exists only because everyone else is doing it.
E05 /
Establish the way forward
Translate insight into direction, priorities, decision criteria and questions the team can continue using.
Clarity is not the end of the work. It is what makes the right work possible.
A next step /