The value of Sense of Coherence in organisational contexts

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In my previous post, I introduced Antonovski’s Sense of Coherence. In this one, I want to reflect on how I have been using it for sensemaking in organisational contexts.

First, a short recap. The Sense of Coherence (SoC) construct can be described as an orientation towards the world that perceives it, on a continuum, as comprehensible, manageable and meaningful. “SoC provides people with a general tendency to (i) make sense cognitively of unfamiliar situations; (ii) make sense instrumentally of how to access the resources required to cope and manage; and (iii) make sense emotionally of their motivation to act with meaning and purpose.”(Van der Merwe et al., 2019)

Antonovski acknowledged the role of the environment and culture on the development of individual SoC. This is especially pertinent in organisational contexts. The environments we interact with and the experiences we have at work can undermind or nurture individual (and collective) SoC.

As organisations grapple with new ways of organising to accommodate greater flexibility, I believe SoC is a key consideration. Forcing people to go back to the office, or into hybrid ways of working could create serious unintended consequences.

What we have observed in organisations

Since the start of the pandemic, we have used this construct in multiple narrative inquiries into organisational wellbeing. We gathered stories of people’s experiences at work and asked them to make meaning of their stories by positioning where they feel their story belongs on a triangle featuring the 3 SoC aspects. You can see the results in the images below (each dots is someone’s story and the prompt question was something along the lines of “In your story, outcomes were influenced by my ability to …”).

In the beginning of 2020, the dominant patterns were towards the center o of the triangle i.e. people were grappling with all three aspects with a skew towards sensemaking or comprehensibility. Retrospectively, this makes sense as people struggled to navigate a completely novel situation. The initial experiences of lockdowns, overrun hospitals, friends sick and dying and conflicting advice from authorities accompanied big changes in work contexts seemingly overnight.

As time went on we saw the patterns shift towards manageability or the ability to cope. As we started to settle into the new reality, people’s stories shifted more towards managing and coping with the realities of working remotely amidst the trauma of COVID19. This is also where the impact of organisational context came into stark focus. In some organisations, people’s stories reflected their difficulties, but in context of companies where people felt held and cared for. They still struggled with balancing multiple roles and responsiblities and dealing with needing to acquire new skills. But they felt supported, and therefore better able to cope. In other organisations, the picture looked very different.

“We are working under tremendous pressure and getting micro managed. Iam anxious every day because I have new additional work to do that I never dealt with before. I do not get the chance to do what Iwas appointed for. I can’t live a balance life. Sitting at the house every day has changed me into someone working from morning till night. Giving feedback on what you are going to do, what you have done , why have you not done this already?? Currently I am not in a good space and experience high stress levels. I really don’t know if I can hold on like this for long. My health is also not good.”

People from these organisations tell stories about a lack of work/life boundaries and their lives being consumed by work; struggling with home environments not set up for work and juggling multiple roles (e.g. home schooling) with no support; being thrown in the deep end, needing to learn multiple new tools and ways of working again without support; some felt isolated and lamented a loss of personal connection and sense of belonging. Adding to the stress is a form of survival guilt: “I can’t complain, I should be thankful I still have a job”.

More recently, and concerningly, the patterns are shifting towards a struggle with meaningfulness. People are losing their motivation to try to make sense and cope with what is happening. They are fatigued, depleted and in many cases feel hopeless. People are overwhelmed, burnt-out and losing their motivation to keep trying.

“This is a waste of time, and effort, and makes me feel totally non valued. I am a high performer, running a large business and team — but this does not mean that I do not need interaction with the boss, just because he thinks I’m Ok. I feel that people matter less now — I am definitely feeling that I don’t matter to my boss at all. I am just a number. No matter how hard I work — I am invisible.”

We are seeing a so-called resignation or turn-over tsunami where those who are privileged enough to have a choice are opting out of dehumanising corporate jobs. Those who can’t find themselves stuck in a downward wellbeing spiral, and we are already seeing a mental health pandemic gaining momentum.

One of the reasons for this (I believe) is that we have all been confronted with death and suffering at an almost unimaginable scale as we navigate the successive waves of this pandemic . Most of us prefer not to think about death, and we have built solid defense mechanisms over the years in an unconscious effort to avoid the reality of our mortality. It is uncomfortable and confronting to consider how fragile our lives are, and this pandemic has forced us to acknowledge that. In the face of this, more and more people are questioning their life and career choices. Suddenly those corporate ladders we have been climbing no longer seem worthwhile.

If organisations are to retain key staff and avoid the costs of increased burnout and other wellbeing challenges, they HAVE to think about creating environments where humans can thrive. It is in this context that I think Antonovski’s SoC comes into its own. One of the reasons I find it useful is its applicability across different contexts. I can use it to make sense of my own experience, and I can use it to help an HR, Resilience, or Executive team make sense of wellbeing dynamics in their teams or organisations. Similarly it applies to communities, schools and hospitals.

This question is more or less applicable anywhere: What can be done in this team, company, factory, hospital, school, or community geographic community to strengthen the sense of comprehensibility, manageability, and meaningfulness of the individuals who constitute it? How do we create the conditions for SoC to emerge and be sustained?

Over the last few months, I have used it often in workshops with executive and HR teams. It is a very practical framework, and easy to understand. Where challenges emerge is when people realise that creating the conditions for coherence will require some fundamental changes from a systems perspective. In many large organisations, under the guise of championing agency and “treating people like adults,” leaders take the stance that “people need to look after their wellbeing.” In my opinion, this is a cop-out. While it is true that we are all responsible for the choices we make and practicing self-care, many of us find ourselves in toxic organisational structures that undermine our efforts. How many people have the freedom to impose their own work/life boundaries? What would happen when they tell their managers that they will no longer be attending meetings or answering calls after a certain time or over weekends? The reality is that our work contexts prioritise control and “high performance” — and performance expectations have not changed, even though everything else has.

“The pandemic has affected how time is managed due to the increased need to be a caregiver with domestic chores, home schooling etc. As much as many people are in this same predicament I think it is imperative to acknowledge that the varying factors from age of kids, to the level of support in the household, own mental state and physical health as well as psycho-social influences primarily shapes ones ability to cope. This is my own personal assessment. The compounding effect of performance development adds a layer of anxiety as the desired contribution to the set out performance objectives was not as easily attainable due to the swift addition of responsibilities and learning to live in an absolutely challenging time both mentally and physically. And then we hear about imminent job cuts. We cannot marginalize and isolate individuals that are not truly not able to give more due to extenuating circumstances beyond their control. There is a culture of fear created unconsciously when conversations take a turn to “we should be lucky we have a job, we need to stand out and contribute to the conversation and do more.” Has anyone thought of the added mental and emotional stress this results in for those already going through a substantial amount of stress? ”

In an effort to meet unrealistic expectations, managers and executives are also working themselves to death. Their example shapes what staff perceive as being expected of them. Also, in an anxiety response to a seeming loss of control, some managers have resorted to surveillance of their distributed team members. In toxic contexts like these, expecting people to look after their wellbeing is a fantasy. It is the responsibility of the organisation and its leaders to really prioritise the wellbeing of their staff and create the conditions for people to maintain their sense of coherence.

Creating the conditions for Collective Sense of Coherence.

Individual SoC contribute to the resilience of the overall system and collective SoC. Social groups with lower levels of SoC experience more fear, anxiety, and depression. An ex-client team used SoC as part of their efforts to create organisational resilience. In a write up for a recent conference, the authors write: “SoC reflects an enduring general orientation to life and is a multi-level concept across temporal, spatial and organisational scales, applicable to individuals, families, communities, organisations and nations.”

They present the following multi-disciplinary synthesis on how to promote collective Sense of Coherence and present many practical ideas in the context of establishing preparedness, performing emergency response and extracting organisational learning from experience.

Comprehensibility:

Agent role: System stewards contribute to sense-making in the system by making the system visible and this help people to see the world as comprehensible.

Skills to develop: cognitive competencies, e.g. creative thinking, problem solving, and organization. Prepare leaders to perform technical leadership strategies under pressure, e.g. to understand and monitor a crisis, maintain operational functionality, and manage cash.

Manageability:

Agent role: System stewards contribute to network weaving in the system by building relationships and trust and this helps people to see the challenges in the world as manageable.

Skills to develop: interpersonal competencies e.g. teamwork, networking, and conflict management. Mentor leaders in strategies to lead people and society under pressure, e.g. to demonstrate care, build and sustain trust, and contain anxiety.

Meaningfulness:

Agent role: System stewards contribute to meaning-making in the system by establishing shared purpose and this helps people to see their role in the world as meaningful.

Skills to develop: intrapersonal competencies e.g. a growth mind- set, self-regulation, and tenacity. Cultivate internal leadership qualities required under pressure, e.g. to be calm, reflect and learn as you go, assume authority, and then delegate it where it can do most good.

The paper is well worth a read.

Practical ways to think about creating an environment that supports Sense of Coherence.

In addition to the above, here are a few examples extracted from things some client organisations have experimented with.

1. Comprehensibility

• Be very mindful and intentional about what and how you communicate. People need to be informed but not flooded. Make sure your communications are unambiguous and transparent.
• If you don’t know, say so. Don’t hide not knowing behind ambiguous messages. It will only make things worse. Don’t fall into the trap of providing false certainty.
• Ensure role and task boundaries are clearly defined. If roles are fluid, at least make sure functional boundaries are clear.
• When we cannot provide certainty, focus on clarity. In a recent article, David Rock writes: “Clarity, like certainty, can calm the mind and reduce the sense of threat to help improve our ability to focus.” He offers three suggestions to create clarity:

a. Eliminate alternatives i.e., tell people what is not going to happen. “Not knowing can be nerve-wracking, even with something as simple as why food delivery is delayed. Will it ever get here? Did the driver get into an accident? Is my food spilled all over their car? Amid uncertainty, the brain goes through many options and can spiral into worst-case scenarios. … One way to gain more cognitive resources is to remove variables and decrease ambiguity.” For example, Microsoft’s announcement that their staff could choose to work from home indefinitely took the possibility off the table that employees would be forced back into the physical office. Amid continued uncertainty, it at least gave people one less variable to be concerned about.

b. Give people a sense of timing and create cadences. Not having a sense of timing can create a feeling of foreboding, like we are always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Providing a timeline (and not being afraid to adjust it when needed) can give a greater sense of containment — for example, announcing a specific date when the organisation will review remote working policies. Even if things are uncertain, providing a clear timeline for reassessment prevents worry.

Creating cadences and rhythms also helps. For example, “Patagonia’s employees can count on a weekly check-in via the Wellness Corner. With its curated articles, podcasts, videos, and recipes, the publication is intended to give Patagonia employees some perspective, levity, and peace of mind. And the Wellness Corner increases their sense of relatedness.”

c. Define principles. “By defining principles, we give people clarity about what matters most. We don’t increase certainty, but we help people be clear about where they should focus. For example, consumer packaged goods giant Procter & Gamble met the challenges of 2020 and beyond anchored on three core principles: Protect the health and wellbeing of P&G’s people; serve consumers around the world; and support communities, relief agencies, and people on the front lines.”

2. Manageability

• Think very carefully about the amount of work (and change) that is put into the system “upstream”. Sometimes decision-makers and executives forget that a single initiative generated upstream creates multiple projects and a lot of work downstream. An executive team who aren’t able to limit or stagger their initiatives end up completely flooding workers downstream. In some companies, in a response to anxiety triggered by high levels of uncertainty, leadership teams “hedge their bets” and try to do too much. This creates a veritable tsunami of conflicting priorities for the people who need to execute on all of these initiatives. It is an upstream responsibility to prioritise and set “change in progress” limits.
• Revisit performance expectations and targets. People are dealing with home environments that aren’t suited for remote working. Some are needing to juggle work and child care or even homeschooling. It is entirely unrealistic and frankly inhumane to expect people to perform at the same level (or higher) when their work contexts have wholly changed and, in some cases, markets have been decimated.
• Enable people to build skills and capabilities that promote change resilience and complexity fitness. Courses to learn how to properly use new tools like MS Teams and Miro are givens. Yet, now more than ever (in in future) people will need skills like sensemaking, mindfulness, curiosity, play … prioritise these. Now.
• Ensure people have the right tools and skills. It’s not sustainable for people to work without proper equipment and technology. Help people create ergonomic work spaces at home.
• Focus on strengthening informal networks. If I know where to find what I need, whether it be knowledge, skill or resources; I immediately feel that I am better able to cope.
• Create mechanisms and policies to enable staff to maintain work-life boundaries and maintain their capacity. For example:

// Create meeting/call free times e.g. I created No-Call Fridays for the team in my previous company. Discourage meetings before or after certain times. Just because people no longer spend time commuting does not mean that 6am or 7pm meetings are ok.

// Let your technology scaffold new ways of working e.g. set up your calendar system so that it does not allow the scheduling of back-to-back meetings e.g. meetings cannot start “on the hour”.

//It may sound trite, but in some organisational cultures people need “permission” to not monitor mails over weekends or when they are on holiday. Changing that culture is on the organisation and it’s leaders, not the people. If you are in a leadership position and choose to work all hours, schedule your emails to go out during work hours. You may tell people that you don’t expect them to respond, but if you receive an email from your manager over the weekend, you will feel pressure to respond.

3.Meaningfulness

• Now is the time to clarify your true organisational purpose, not just an idealistic statement on a wall. Why do we exist? Who would miss us if we were no longer here? What do we stand for as an organisation. How do we make the world a better place? Create a compelling story around it and make sure people know how their roles, no matter how menial, contribute to that purpose. Make work meaningful.
• Prioritise creating a culture where everone’s effort is acknowledged and celebrated.
• Create opportunities for learning and growth. While the reality is that some roles don’t afford many opportunities for career advancement, this doesn’t mean that organisations cannot create opportunities for staff to grow.
• Acknowledge that the people who are working for you now are not the same people they were before the pandemic. People have grown. They have developed. They have experienced trauma. Don’t assume you have the same workforce as before. Jennifer Garvey-Berger writes: The relationships that will thrive in this period are the ones where we are most curious about who this person has become, rather than the ones where we are so desperate to get back to what we used to know that we miss the person unfolding before us.
• Find ways to foster personal connections and relationships. In trying times, informal networks matter. Some people are feeling isolated and lonely even while being overwhelmed with back to back calls. Don’t make everything about work, connect as human beings. We scheduled weekly coffee dates — 30 minutes, optional team Zoom calls, only 1 rule — no work conversations. I was always surprised by how energising those calls were. We need human connection.
• In addition, encourage and ritualise one-on-one connections between team members. Create a weekly cadence where each person calls one other person (rotating each week) for a 15 minute human conversation (yes an actual conversation, not a whatapp or Zoom call!).

I am sure there are many more ideas out there of what can be done. For me the value lies in asking the question and having the conversations this framework affords.

In response to the growing need, not only in our client organisations but also in society, I have been collaborating with my friend and fellow complexity geek Casper Oelofsen from Mindful Leadership, to create a series of self-paced learning modules combining insights and practices from complexity and mindfulness. Our aim is to enable individuals and organisations to increase their complexity fitness and through that their SOC.

Get in touch if you’d like to know more.

Sources and references.

1. Handbook of Salutogenesis — Aaron Antonovski

2. The age of certainty is over — David Rock

3. Culture in salutogenesis: the scholarship of Aaron Antonovski — Benz et al

4. Sensemaking as an approach for resilience assessment in an Essential Service Organization — Van der Merwe, Biggs & Preiser 2019. Springer. Environment Systems and Decisions

5. Using sense of coherence to cultivate enabling conditions for social resilience — Dr S.E. van der Merwe, R.G. Koch, A.J. Correia, T.S. Moganedi (JIRC conference procedings

6. Developing through COVID — Jennifer Garvey Berger