Reflexive sensegiving: An open-ended process of influencing the sensemaking of others during organizational change

In this paper, we contribute to the understanding of how managers engage in efforts to influence the sensemaking of others without prescribing a specific redefinition of organizational reality, and doing this while trying to empower their subordinates. Through observations of leadership conferences and interviews, we followed an attempt to establish a new management philosophy in the Swedish police. The aim of the initiative was to facilitate the development of independent co-workers with little or no hierarchical support. The results show how managers utilize reflexivity in sensegiving to facilitate participants’ sensemaking. We suggest the following definition for reflexive sensegiving: a multivocal process aiming to influence how the sensemaking and construction of meaning evolves. Reflexive sensegiving has four distinctive features: open-endedness, low control over cues given, several sources of cues, and the encouragement of complexity and ambiguity. Our contribution, which has conceptual and theoretical consequences, is centred around new outlooks on the content, agent(s), and process of sensegiving.