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Christian Madsbjerg's Sensemaking: The Power of the Humanities in the Age of

the Algorithm - A Book Review
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American Research Journal of Business and Management
(ARJBM)
ISSN (Online) : 2379-1047
Volume 3, 2017, 4 Pages
Book Review Open Access
CChristian Madsbjerg’s Sensemaking: The Power

of the Humanities in the Age of the Algorithm
Alexander Franco, Ph.D.
Stamford International University, Graduate School of Business
[email protected]
Received Date: July 7, 2017 Accepted Date: July 10, 2017 Published Date: July 17, 2017
The objectives of this work were twofold: The first was a call for a return to educating business leaders in
the fields of humanities and social sciences in order to combat the rise of algorithmic intelligence which the
author argues lacks the ability to produce contextual analyses that can comprehensively understand and
interpret perspective and meaning. The second objective was to offer phenomenology as the methodological
orientation to analyze the context of business situations as phenomena, which can then provide greater insights
leading to viable solutions.
The author, a management consultant, creates a construct which he names “sensemaking” and which he defines
as “wisdom grounded in the humanities” or “the exact opposite of algorithmic thinking” (p. 6). The bulk of the
book is structured to present the five principles that make up sensemaking: 1) culture – not individuals; 2) thick
data – not just thin data; 3) the savannah – not the zoo; 4) creativity – not manufacturing, and; 5) the North Star
– not the GPS. These five principles are discussed below.
The first principle argues that focusing on individual behavior decontextualizes human action since such action
can only be adequately analyzed through a larger cultural context, or as the author states, “[n]othing exists in an
individual vacuum” (p. 11). Principle 2 discusses “thick data,” by which the author is referring to looking beyond
the what of a phenomenon [i.e., algorithmic empirical data collected – or “thin data stripped of all its organic life”
(p. 16)] and, instead, the why of what is happening through a holistic synthesis of the data. Principle 3 calls for
analysis of true social contexts that cannot be found in abstract numbers. The author uses the metaphor of the
savannah versus the zoo, or “watching a pack of lions hunt on the actual savannah” as opposed to “seeing them
get fed from a bowl at the zoo” (pp. 16-17). Principle 4 emphasizes creative thinking or abductive reasoning,
which the author defines as “non-linear problem solving” (p. 19) over traditional approaches of inductive or
deductive reasoning. The last principle uses the analogy of following the north star over GPS to argue against
reliance on the acquisition of information without being able to understand how it was collected and without
acquiring the ability to interpret “new and unfamiliar contexts” (p. 22). The author concludes by stating that
these five principles can be operationalized by apply phenomenology as an analytical tool which he believes is
context-sensitive. He argues that studying human experiences within a cultural context creates an “analytical
empathy” (p. 116) that better helps to explain the complexities of the world.
It is important to note that the author is not a neo-Luddite; this work does not regret technological advances in
algorithmic intelligence and it is devoid of the gloom and doom found in many contemporary works regarding
a technological future. It is an important work because of its advocacy of foundational knowledge in the
humanities being acquired by business leaders. Indeed, a similar argument can be made for everyone. The
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Sensemaking: The Power of the Humanities in the Age of the Algorithm
author laments that such education is being bypassed for technical training, beginning at the bachelor level of
higher education. This work argues that without a philosophical framework and a meaningful methodological
approach to analyzing the world, we are at a loss to understand and solve complex problems in the business
world and beyond.
Such an advocacy is welcomed and missed in recent works by Martin Ford (2015), and Ryan Avent (2016), to
give just two examples, that examined the challenges of a technological future only to advocate redistribution
of wealth and guaranteed income schemes. Madsbjerg succeeds where they failed. He declares that algorithmic
intelligence, whether from a super computer or a future humanoid robot, will never be able to replicate
the thinking of humans. The author implies that the soul of a human being, in the non-supernatural sense,
constitutes the unique crystallization of life experiences, emotion, knowledge, and contemplation that, in turn,
generates innovation, creativity, intuition, and the ability to examine human action in depth and with empathy.
Computers and robots, at best, can be invested with bits and pieces of human souls but in the aggregate, can
never replicate genuine self-awareness or a conscience through a computational process. Good ideas are golden
currency that algorithms cannot mint. The author argues that the depth of our souls depends on exposure to
the richness offered by studying art, the humanities, and the social sciences. Only through this exposure can we
develop a meaningful philosophical sense of life.
If the author had focused solely on this message, this book would have been sound and laudable, albeit somewhat
short. However, Madsbjerg then reached into the realm of the social sciences and made an unfortunate selection
in the methodology to be used for business analyses. This is where this work became problematic to the point
of unintended self-sabotage.
The author argues that individuals should always be viewed as “situated in a context” and, therefore, human
behavior cannot be understood without understanding the context itself – “an argument for the holistic versus
the atomized” (p. 49). To accomplish this, he chose phenomenology as the methodological tool to accomplish
context-sensitive analysis. This presents several problems. Firstly, phenomenology, like most residents in the
postmodernist realm, lacks a clear definition. Pure phenomenology views subject matter as autonomous and,
unfortunately, that epistemic isolation renders it operationally useless for analytical endeavors. More practical
manifestations of phenomenology still suffer from weak metaphysical foundations, let alone ontological
considerations, and these weak foundations, in turn, are responsible for anemic analysis or outright inertia as
a result of profound epistemic uncertainty.
Phenomenology argues that contemplation of human experience is primary for understanding since what truly
matters is how things are seen. This is problematic in that humans lack a detailed, internal representation
of any given scene. Experiential meanings (i.e., how things seem to a person) are not enough for any robust
analysis since psychological observation and personal meditation cannot pass for logic. Phenomenology leaves
the back door open for ambiguity, subjectivity, and indeterminacy while discouraging empirical inquiry and
rejecting metaphysical assumptions as well as epistemic commitments.
Worse, the author then crowns Martin Heidegger as our future philosopher king. Heidegger is mentioned no
less than twenty-four times in the book and it is from Heidegger’s opaque writings (mostly Being and Time) that
the author derives his favorite version of phenomenology. A major problem with this choice is that Heidegger
was a devoted Nazi, known to have delivered lectures on biological stock and racial superiority while proudly
wearing a brown shirt and his party badge. A personal friend to Eugene Fischer, director of the Berlin Institute
for Racial Hygiene, Heidegger served as rector of Freiburg University where he cooperated with the local
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Gestapo in pro-actively providing information about Jews and non-conformists to the Nazi regime within
the university setting. This included his one-time mentor, Edmund Husserl, who was a Jew and from whom
Heidegger obtained fundamental insights regarding phenomenology. Without Edmund Husserl, there would
not have been a Martin Heidegger.
Heidegger created a legacy of sexually exploiting his students, including Jews (Hannah Arendt being one) as
a pattern of marital infidelity that spanned much of his life. He believed that national socialism required a
philosopher king and offered himself to this role. However, his support for Hitler began to wane when the Nazis
did not take this offer seriously. Unrepentant to the end, Heidegger was incriminated for association with the
regime and was banned from teaching from 1946 to 1950.
Why is all this important? Because the author of this book and others would undoubtedly argue that it is possible
to separate a man’s politics from his philosophy or, specifically, that Heidegger’s philosophical worldview was
not Nazi with regard to phenomenology (which he developed before Hitler came to power). The problem is
that politics is indeed a branch of philosophy and one heavily depend on three other branches: metaphysics,
epistemology, and ethics. These three in combination provide an integrated view of man’s nature, his relationship
to existence, and what is morally justifiable – specifically in politics, what is morally acceptable regarding the
use of the coercive powers of the state. Heidegger’s philosophical sense of life, including his emphasis on the
importance and supremacy of the Germanic community, was based to a great extent on racism. The metaphysics
of racism is so self-evident in its corruption that it becomes easier to understand how Heidegger’s epistemic
construction of phenomenological inquiry is so flawed and why phenomenological research methods have been
limited to eccentric philosophical journals. The link is not to suggest that phenomenology is a Nazi construct;
the link is in the weaknesses in Heidegger’s overall philosophical worldview and its consequential epistemic
constructs.
This reviewer is not the first to say that this emperor had no clothes. That Heidegger is not worthy of becoming
our philosopher king is also self-evident by phenomenology’s very limited appeal and almost no utilitarian
value in academia. It is an intoxicating elixir for mediocre philosophers in that it offers the ingredients of being
anti-modern and contemptuous of the common man (thus giving the philosopher a false sense of superiority)
while at the same time being ephemeral (like embracing fog), and kaleidoscopic, thus making it a difficult
moving target to hit, beginning with an ambiguous definition that remains a domain for substantive dispute.
As with the concept of postmodernism, to be invited to debate its substance is akin to being invited to a party
where you are asked to dive off the deep end of a pool with no water.
This reviewer is not linking the author with Heidegger’s politics. The author was educated at a time when
postmodernism was (and still is) the prevailing zeitgeist in the social sciences. He undoubtedly chose within the
limitations of what he was exposed to. A better choice as a context-sensitive methodological orientation would
have been dialectics. Dialectic analysis, which has been around since the time of Aristotle, is a methodological
orientation that transcends ideology. In being contextual, relational, and dynamic, it allows for a
multidimensional and integrative means to a critical understanding of a given phenomenon. Dialectics is
contextual because it relates specific factors to their wider context; it is relational because it traces interrelations
between and among factors; it is dynamic because it examines factors in terms of their movement over time.
Dialectics refuses to isolate or disconnect factors, events, or issues from one another or from any system they
jointly constitute. It recognizes a past, present, and a future by way of antecedent conditions, the dynamics of
interrelationships, and projected consequences. Its practicality is in operationalizing an analytical strategy of
contextually grasping parts within larger totalities.
On a final note, the author illustrated the five principles of sensemaking by using mini-case studies and anecdotes.
He profiled George Soros for his mastery at being able to “simultaneously synthesize inputs of inconceivable
complexity” (p. 80) as an example of utilizing “thick data” over “thin data.” This flattering profile went on for
nearly three pages where the author informs us that Soros “trained himself to rigorously stay open to all types
of knowing” (p. 83). This is astonishing and ironic given that Soros was convicted in 2002 of insider trading
regarding the takeover of SocieteGenerale, a French bank. Why Soros would be picked at all as a laudatory
figure in this book is troubling. As an adolescent, Soros (of Jewish descent) collaborated with Nazis during
World War II in helping them confiscate property from Jews that Soros identified. Soros has described this as
the happiest time of his life. Later, as a currency speculator, Soros helped orchestrate the Asian Financial Crisis
of 1997 in which the Malaysian ringgit lost forty-five percent of its value and the Thai baht lost sixty percent,
sending those two nations into an economic death spirals of unemployment, bankruptcies, massive poverty,
and suicides. The prime minister of Malaysia labeled Soros a villain. In 1992, Soros crashed the British pound,
causing the British government to lose over three billion pounds. The combination of these actions suggest that
this man is, at the very least, knocking on the door of sociopathy.
The choices of Heidegger for philosopher king and Soros as a virtuoso of business are, indeed, unfortunate.
They diminish the gravitas needed for the author’s worthy crusade and may even cause many to ignore his
clarion call to champion the return to a robust educational background in the humanities and social sciences
for future business leaders. Perhaps the moral of this story may be that the value of a liberal arts education is
only as good as the diversity of ideas to which it exposes to students.
References
Avent, R. (2017). The wealth of humans: Work and its absence in the twenty-first century. London: Penguin
Random House UK.
Ford, Martin. (2015). The rise of the robots: Technology and the threat of mass unemployment. London: Oneworld
Publications.
Sensemaking : The Power of the Humanities in the Age of the Algorithm

Christian Madsbjerg
New York: Hachette Books 2017
Citation: Alexander Franco, Christian Madsbjerg’s Sensemaking: The Power of the Humanities in the Age of
the Algorithm. American Research Journal of Business and Management; V3, I1; pp:1-4
Copyright © 2017 Alexander Franco, This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons
Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the
original work is properly cited.
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What are the five principles of sensemaking discussed in the book?

What is the author's argument for applying phenomenology as an analytical tool?

See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

Christian Madsbjerg's Sensemaking: The Power of the Humanities in the Age of

Article · July 2017

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Book Review Open Access

CChristian Madsbjerg’s Sensemaking: The Power

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Sensemaking : The Power of the Humanities in the Age of the Algorithm

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