A Gestalt-processing Practitioner Attends a Management Conference
(Or: What I learned at the AOM 2026 last week)
The Sensegiver
How do we help people embrace change faster—not through crisis or coercion, but through better ideas? The Sensegiver offers research and field notes from cognitive science, transformative learning, and 25+ years of making things make sense to others.
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What do you do when you can't agree on what matters?
"Positionality": Agree on what comes first, and what it costs.
The smallest units of sensemaking, and other hypnopompics
Also: everything happens for a reason (if chance counts); can insight be primed?; why is a facade the strongest part (!?); and what we lose when we let AI think for us.
What if your proof isn't enough for them?
"Positionality": Agree on the standard and how far it holds
What do you do when you can’t agree on what’s even real?
You don't need to agree on everything. Just on one thing, for now.
What does practitioner rigor actually look like?
A recap of this month's Office Hours, where I tried to figure it out in public.
What’s left to try when you’ve done everything right?
“Positionality”: Share the ground you stand on
The Cure for Indefensibility
Include the Evidence of Experience
The Cure for Incomprehensibility: Frame It, Then Fill It
It sounds obvious, I know, and yet so often it’s a step we skip entirely:
The Cure for Irrelevance: Locate Your Idea
Last week, I had… Two entirely different conversations, In two entirely different contexts, With two entirely different people… …Who both had the same complaint about an idea.