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Making Sense of Innovation in an Uncertain World

Posted on May 29, 2026 by David

In 2026, as AI reshapes management and volatility defines markets, innovation demands more than data or disruption – it’s about perceiving possibilities and acting on them amid chaos. Four concepts – sensemaking, predictive processing, affordances, and emergence – offer managers a practical framework to navigate this reality.

Perception Shapes Reality

Sensemaking, pioneered by the late Karl Weick, reminds us that reality isn’t just observed; it’s enacted through ongoing interpretation. Managers don’t analyze like detached scientists – they weave order from ambiguity using experiences, emotions, and context. This contrasts with the rationalist bias in business schools and explains why rigid planning often fails in dynamic environments.

Cognitive psychologist Gary Klein has shown how experienced practitioners make decisions under time pressure, uncertainty, unclear goals, high stakes, poorly defined procedures, dynamic conditions, etc. Under these circumstances they do not use the mainstream Rational Choice Model. Instead, they use what Klein calls the Naturalistic or Recognition-primed Decision Model. It’s about recognizing patterns derived from long and varied experiences to create expectancies, trigger sensitivity to cues, and suggest plausible goals and possible actions. The focus is on the way they assess the situation and judge it familiar, not on comparing options.

Fast Evaluations

Courses of action can be quickly evaluated by imagining how they will be carried out, not by formal analysis. Decision makers usually look for the first workable option they can find, not the best option. Since the first option they consider is usually workable, they do not have to generate a large set of options to be sure they get a good one. They generate and evaluate options, one at a time, and do not bother comparing advantages and disadvantages of alternatives. By imagining the option being carried out, they can spot weaknesses thereby making the option stronger. While conventional models select the best, without seeing how it can be improved., the emphasis is on being poised to act rather than being paralyzed until all evaluations have been completed.

Brains and Bodies Predict Ahead

This recognition-primed approach aligns with how our brains and bodies cope with the world. Neuroscientist Andy Clark’s predictive processing suggests that we constantly forecast outcomes, blending top-down models with bottom-up feedback to minimize surprise. In the realm of necessity (where AI excels with precise answers), we refine predictions. But in the domain of contingency – where judgment rules – we act to bend reality. This demands embodied experience that LLM AIs lack. From this activity action possibilities emerge

Action and Perception are tightly coupled

A good example of how action and perception are connected is from baseball. Outfielders in professional baseball (or cricket) catch most fly balls successfully. From the perspective of a physicist, it is ‘as-if’ they can calculate the velocity of the ball off the bat, predict its trajectory and run to the spot where it will land. We know they don’t actually do this. Instead, they use a gaze heuristic, maintaining a constant angle of gaze between their eyes and the ball. If the ball rises in their field of view, they run away from it, if it’s dropping, they run toward it. The constant process of adjustment, weaving together error detection through perception and error reduction through action allows them to be at the right place by the time the ball becomes catchable. That’s what innovative organizations do: they put themselves in the right place at the right time.

Seizing Action Opportunities

Ecologist J.J. Gibson’s affordances frame environments as landscapes of possibilities tailored to our goals. Innovation thrives on spotting these “adjacent possibles”—opportunities for bricolage or improvisation. Leaders who expand choices, rather than narrowing them, turn constraints into breakthroughs, much like startups pivoting amid scarcity.

When I ran a North American steel distribution company (traditionally regarded as a price-taking commodity business), I occasionally got up at 4:30 a.m. to ride in delivery trucks making their morning rounds with customers. It soon became apparent that the customers’ yards in the early morning were places and occasions when threats and opportunities became most visible. It was clear that our drivers were a valuable resource. From their unique vantage points, they could see how busy our customers were, what kinds of materials they were buying and from who. We could get early warning of strikes and slowdowns and by cultivating relations with yard bosses our drivers could get our trucks in and out faster. The solution was to treat the drivers, not as hired hands, but as the valuable sources of information that they were and engage them in the company conversation. Weekly lunchtime debriefs and the occasional distribution of football tickets via the drivers made all the difference. Affordances – action possibilities – emerge continually from processes like these.

Orchestrating Emergence

Emergence can’t be commanded, only fostered. New ventures start in passion and trust, scaling through repeatable models into power structures that risk stifling creativity. Discerning managers dwell in an “adaptive space”: oscillating in a yin-yang dynamic between abstraction and action, necessity and contingency, to avoid competency traps and sustain vitality.

For Drucker Forum leaders, this means redesigning organizations as porous ecosystems—decentralized, experimental, and purpose-driven. Ditch top-down control for facilitated emergence: empower frontline sensemaking, hunt affordances daily, and measure success by adaptive capacity, not just outputs. Consultants, Neel Doshi and Lindsay McGregor describe a yin-yang tension between tactical performance and adaptive performance. Tactical performance, assessed by conventional metrics, is often overused, suppressing initiative and curiosity, especially when performance reviews are tied to compensation. Adaptive performance is all about how well people respond when plans break down. It’s about experimentation and their ability to improvise under pressure. It’s about learning goals in a culture that encourages exploration and develops peripheral vision and resilience. It turns out that tech companies can learn from hotels and florists, financial service companies from barber shops and tattoo parlours.

In 2026’s unpredictable terrain, innovative managers don’t predict the future—they can shape it, moment by moment.