Sensing the System
Collective Perception, Governance, and Conditions for Action in Complex Organizations
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.47061/jasc.v6i1.11414Keywords:
systems sensing, governance, systemic constellations, sensemaking, embodied cognition, decision-making, complexity, embodied knowing, participatory researchAbstract
This paper presents an awareness-based research pilot conducted with a mission-driven organization navigating a transition from a volunteer structure to a more formalized governance model. The study examines how systems sensing practices, particularly systemic constellations, can support governance in complex, multi-stakeholder contexts by making relational and structural dynamics more perceptible and available for collective interpretation. Grounded in sensemaking, embodied cognition, and complexity-informed governance, the study conceptualizes governance as the coordination of perception, meaning-making, and authority in the formation and enactment of decisions. The intervention was designed to support the organization’s efforts to strengthen strategic clarity, improve coordination, and develop greater alignment around roles and decision-making processes. Using a cooperative inquiry design, participants engaged in interviews, guided sensing journeys, systemic constellations, and follow-up reflection. Analysis of interviews, workshop interactions, and participant reflections showed that systemic constellations enabled participants to surface and engage with relevant relational and structural dynamics, such as divergent leadership perspectives and role and authority misalignments, by making them more collectively perceptible and available as shared visual reference points. This allowed participants to examine, interact with, and reflect on these dynamics together in real time. However, these shifts in perception did not translate into coordinated action. The findings indicate that while systems sensing can expand what becomes collectively perceptible within governance processes, its influence depends on structural conditions, particularly the participation and alignment of decision-making authority and opportunities for collective integration. The study contributes an empirical and methodological account of how embodied and relational ways of knowing can inform governance by making previously implicit relational and structural dynamics more perceptible and available for collective sensemaking, and clarifies the conditions under which expanded perception can, or cannot, support coherent collective action.
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