Simplexity: Sensemaking, organizing and storytelling for our time

Abstract

Simplexity is advanced as an umbrella term reflecting sensemaking, organizing and storytelling for our time. People in and out of organizations increasingly find themselves facing novel circumstances that are suffused with dynamic complexity. To make sense through processes of organizing, and to find a plausible answer to the question 'what is the story?', requires a fusion of sufficient complexity of thought with simplicity of action, which we call simplexity. This captures the notion that while sensemaking is a balance between thinking and acting, in a new world that owes less to yesterday's stories and frames, keeping up with the times changes the balance point to clarifying through action. This allows us to see sense (making) more clearly. Keywords change, organizing, sensemaking, simplexity, storytelling, WeickThere is currently a great deal of retrospective sensemaking regarding recent unprecedented events of rioting and looting in London and other English cities. Unprecedented events challenge organizing and sensemaking in as much as they instigate a search for

The storied mind: A meta-narrative review exploring the capacity of stories to foster humanism in health care

“…[79] The second theme conceptualized storytelling as a communication tool promoting sense-making amidst increasingly complex human interactions such as culture, organizations, and social movements. [80][81][82] Another way that storytelling promotes sense-making is through the pairing of stories and statistics. Statistical evidence may help to tell an effective story [83] but it is also key to the decision about whether use of a specific story should even be considered, [84] such as to coax imaginations or challenge commonly held beliefs.…”

“…The fourth theme characterizes the interplay between how the story is told and how the story is received. [80,85] One's own bias and filter has a significant impact on how one interprets and makes sense of a story. [86] The final theme cited how storytelling could be used to promote culture change.…”

Co-constructing meanings in organizational development

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Making sense of food risk information : the case of organic food

“…The current society can be characterized by a need for "simplexity": complexity of thought combined with simplicity of action (Colville, Brown, & Pye, 2012). A central aspect of such a society is the desire to make sense of complex information.…”

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