Why First Reactions to the Unknown Feel Illogical
This episode explores how people make sense of total uncertainty, from seeing something extraordinary alone to discovering hidden possibilities in the world around us. Drawing on Karl Weick’s work on sensemaking, it shows why early confusion and seemingly illogical guesses are often the first step toward discovery and action.
Show Notes
- Sensemaking in Organizations: Reflections on Karl Weick and ...: https://www.epicpeople.org/sensemaking-in-organizations/
Chapter 1
The Logic of Being Illogical: Sensemaking at the Edge of Discovery
Jesse
You ever think about what happens when you are the only one who sees something wild? Say you are out in a field and you see a UFO. Just you. Not two, not three or four or five people. Just one. Your, your brain goes completely haywire trying to figure out what to do with that, right?
Donna Trump
Completely, Jesse. Because you do not have that crowd consensus yet! You are out there on an island, totally isolated, so your mind starts running all these disoriented, trial and error plays just to regain momentum.
Jesse
Exactly. You start thinking illogically. But, but, but you cannot beat yourself up over it! It is like, uh, what do you expect when something is brand new to your experience?
Donna Trump
Well, organizational theorist Karl Weick laid this exact dynamic out back in nineteen ninety five when he studied sensemaking during sudden disruptions. He showed that when humans hit an uncharted situation, cognition is not hunting for immediate perfect truth. Sensemaking is less a matter of accuracy and completeness than plausibility and sufficiency.
Jesse
Plausibility and sufficiency. Yeah, I like that!
Donna Trump
It is about finding something workable! Think about coconut palms back in early history. People walked right by those trees for centuries thinking, well, those are just hard useless balls hanging off a tree. It took somebody taking an illogical gamble, smashing one open against a rock, to realize there was coconut water inside.
Jesse
Right! It is like a newborn baby, right? You give a newborn a brand new toy. They do not know what it is or what it does. They pick it up, they look at it, and they just drop it on the floor. That is not ignorance. That is just the raw exploratory state of a brain encountering something for the very first time.
Donna Trump
It is the machinery of discovery in action! You do not win by standing still. You have to push forward and test the ground even when the initial logic seems backwards to everyone watching from the sidelines.
Jesse
Man, back in the mid nineteen eighties when Gino and I were calling matches, you would see guys backstage come up with these crazy, unscripted ring maneuvers. People would say, Jesse, that is illogical, that will never work in front of twenty thousand screaming fans. But then they hit the ring, they execute, and boom, it changes the whole business.
Donna Trump
That is how breakthroughs happen! You do not conquer new territory by waiting for a complete rulebook. You conquer it by taking that disoriented early thinking and turning it into decisive action.
Jesse
So if you are out there right now facing a total unknown, do not beat yourself up if your thoughts feel a little disoriented or illogical at first. It is just the first bridge on the road to making sense of the world.
Donna Trump
Trust the process, embrace the search, and keep moving forward.