Back in the late 1990s, organisational change was an emerging discipline – complex to sell and even harder to sustain. At that time, Dr Mike Carter was Managing Director of Stratagem Consulting, a Salisbury-based firm specialising in leadership and change. One day, while visiting a client at B&Q’s head office in Chandler’s Ford, he heard about something called Insights Discovery.

“It was one of those Eureka moments,” recalls Mike. “The HR Director introduced me to Brad Gentry, who outlined the model – and within minutes, it just clicked. The idea that we all have different working styles or behavioural preferences which can be expressed in different ‘colour energies’ not only gave us an incredibly valuable shared language to use while navigating these changes, it also brought the human side of organisational change vividly to life.”

That brief conversation would influence the next 25 years of Mike’s career.

From colours to culture

Stratagem quickly adopted Insights Discovery. Several members of the consultancy team trained in the model, using it to help clients such as the Foreign Office, Gillette, and the NHS explore leadership dynamics and collaboration through increased awareness. The effect was immediate: conversations about performance and change became faster, clearer, and far more engaging The effect was immediate: conversations about performance and change became faster, clearer, and far more engaging.

“Insights gave us a common language,” says Mike. “It distilled complex psychometrics into something intuitive. Our clients could see and feel how people worked together — and that drove real improvement.”

Fast-forward 20 years – the birth of Tensense.ai

Those lessons in clarity, simplicity, and usability stayed with Mike. Two decades later, they would resurface in a different context – the creation of Tensense.ai, a platform built to measure and interpret organisational health in real time.

Where Insights Discovery explores individual behaviour through Jungian psychology, Tensense applies principles of organisational sensemaking.

It examines how collective perception, energy, and adaptability flow through a business – and how those patterns influence performance.

“We wanted to stay true to what Insights taught us,” explains Mike. “A diagnostic must be fast, intuitive, and meaningful. Tensense was designed to capture high-quality data about an organisation’s lived reality – information that traditional surveys or consulting interviews would take months to uncover.”

The Four Lenses of Organisational Health

To achieve that clarity, Tensense visualises results through four lenses:

• Culture Climate – how creativity, collaboration, results, and organisation interact.
• Performance Energy – where focus and drive are building or faltering.
• Team Attributes – the strength and cohesion of key teams.
• Motivation & Leadership – how leadership behaviours shape engagement and commitment.

Each lens is divided into four characteristics, producing a clear, colour-coded map of an organisation’s “health signature”.

In seconds, leaders can see where performance is strong, where tension is building, and where to intervene.

Culture, colour and climate

Perhaps the clearest overlap lies in the Culture Climate lens, which aligns closely with the colour energies familiar to anyone trained in Insights Discovery.

• Red energy — drive and results orientation
• Yellow energy — creativity and innovation
• Green energy — collaboration and empathy
• Blue energy — structure and discipline

“Organisations, like individuals, display combinations of these energies,” Mike notes. “When one dominates too much, balance – and performance – suffer. A healthy culture has the ability to dial energies up or down as the situation demands.”

Tensense captures those shifts monthly, giving leaders a living pulse of their organisation’s mood and momentum.

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The synergy in one sentence

In Mike’s words:

“Tensense identifies the problem. Insights Discovery helps you fix it.”

One platform illuminates the system; the other unlocks the people within it. Together, they offer consultants and leaders a powerful, evidence-based route to performance improvement – linking culture, behaviour, and results in one continuous flow.

Ready to see what your organisation is really telling you? Start with a Tensense cycle and discover how Insights Discovery can turn those insights into meaningful behavioural change. Contact us to begin your organisational health check.

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When two companies merge, the hardest part isn’t combining systems – it’s aligning people, culture, and purpose. Following a major acquisition, two distinct organisations faced this challenge head-on. Leadership recognised that real integration success depends on managing the human and organisational dynamics that determine whether change thrives or stalls.

To bridge both worlds, the integration team deployed Insights Discovery alongside Tensense.ai, creating a live feedback loop between individual behaviour and organisational performance.

The Challenge

Post-acquisition, the new organisation faced familiar pressures:

• “Us vs. them” attitudes across legacy teams
• Inconsistent communication and collaboration
• Uncertainty, fatigue, and loss of momentum
• Limited visibility into where tension might threaten delivery

Leaders needed a way to maintain engagement, track cultural health, and detect early warning signs of stress or disengagement before they impacted business performance.

The Dual-Data Solution

Insights Discovery provided a shared language of communication through its colour-energy framework, helping teams understand and adapt to different working styles.

Tensense.ai added a continuous organisational pulse, tracking how energy, alignment, and pressure shifted each month. Its real-time dashboards gave leaders visibility of where cracks were forming and where support or focus was needed.

Together, these tools connected behavioural empathy with data-driven foresight, turning culture into something measurable and manageable.

Workshop Insights

A joint workshop surfaced how people were really feeling about the merger, what motivated them, and what worried them. Key themes emerged:

✅ Collaboration: Insights helped teams build mutual understanding; Tensense tracked team cohesion in real time.
✅ Growth & Development: Tensense highlighted where energy and opportunity existed; Insights enabled targeted coaching.
⚠️ Resistance to Change: Tensense flagged friction points early; Insights guided leaders in adapting communication and leadership styles.

The result was shared clarity and commitment to keep communication open and progress measurable.

The Results

Within months, the combined data revealed:

• Rising trust and cooperation across teams
• Re-energised collaboration and accountability
• Restarted strategic projects that had stalled
• Greater leadership confidence, supported by early-warning data

The merger moved beyond structure, becoming a story of cultural alignment, trust, and sustained performance.

The Takeaway

By pairing Insights Discovery’s behavioural insight with Tensense.ai’s organisational intelligence, leaders created a living feedback system, one that made culture visible, measurable, and actionable.

Tensense.ai worked in partnership with Performance Catalyst to deliver this successful integration project.

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Internally appointed CEOs who baulk at the title of this paper should consider that, as we develop our careers, it is a continuous adaptation of mirrors, masks, and a search for identity. And if, in the first 100 days, whether appointed externally or from within, the new role does not feel akin to breaking in a ‘new suit’ …… they probably haven’t yet shifted mindset from travellers (as map readers) to explorers (as map makers) in their new land.

The cultural pattern of behaviours in any social group, functions for its members as a point of reference based upon concurrent flows of communication that establishes mutually sustainable identities.  These are reordered as we move into new positions or new people join the organisation, until a tacit knowledge and understanding of ‘thinking as usual’ is created, that can be applied in emerging situations. This is especially so as a new CEO for whom the reordering of relationships will be throughout the organisation, and for whom success will reside more in the nature of the followership than the leadership (which is why knowing how people respond to leadership is a vital navigational aid).

A performative, newly appointed CEO, is more likely to be driven by a rational agenda based upon a map or recipe they have experienced before. There is a danger here because even able and intelligent leaders can become prey to intellectual fads just as easily as anyone else – maybe more so!

There aren’t unambiguous “right answers” in leadership and to think so is a misguided understanding of human nature. A technocratic style of leadership simply isn’t good enough on its own, there must be a value system that visibly drives actions. The newly appointed CEO would be well advised to explore and understand that area of their new landscape if they are to take their people with them on the journey.

At Tensense, we offer a small number of heuristics for the ‘doing’, rather than a recipe of how to do it: there is no recipe for leadership. As such, these function more as compass bearings, providing a possible direction. Maps help in known worlds – worlds that have been chartered before. However, the CEO is dealing with a ‘brave new world’ (i.e. challenging; the shape and direction of which are still emerging). They must learn, and earn, the right to speak authentically on behalf of their organisations – if they are to avoid speaking in nostrums.

Photo by Matthew Henry on Unsplash

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The causes of, and conditions for, organisational health are always changing. Just as medical associations continually update their recommendations on diet and fitness, so must the business community regularly monitor its practices and performance. The companies that do can differentiate themselves from others in the marketplace, however:

“In nature, nothing exists alone.”

Rachel Carson, 1962

Carlson’s observation is that everything you do has an effect somewhere else. One thing can’t live by itself because it is interconnected to everything else. So, if intuitive responses and decisions, as well as logical deduction, are integrated as part of the sensemaking way that people think, make decisions and act, they also inform the concept of organisational health.

Nerve receptors spread throughout the human body provide immediate sensory signals which are then interpreted into the five human senses by the brain. The genius of evolution has enabled humans (with all the inherent problems that brings) to become the super-species on earth, through the combination of hard-wired senses and the ability to create abstract meaning through imagination and belief. In the literal (rather than the oft hackneyed) sense, our evolutionary processes enable us to touch and feel both ‘things’ and ‘situations’.

Yet we live in a world of increasing evidence-driven data, which is why much of our understanding of organisational functioning comes from deep data; detailed and narrowly focused surveys or large-scale consultant-led projects. McKinsey’s health analogy falters on the implied guidance that leaders are best impelled towards a data-driven default, most commonly understood as logic/statistics; but certainly not touch and feel!

Sensemaking (and thus Organisational Sensemaking™), challenges this bias by highlighting the importance of understanding how individuals and groups construct meaning from their experiences and interactions with the world. By understanding sensemaking, we can gain insight into the cognitive and social processes that shape how people understand and make sense of their surroundings.

This represents a nascent opportunity for Tensense, through our expert knowledge of the science and application of Sensemaking, to enhance the way that leaders can quickly make sense of complex and dispersed organisations in a way that narrows attentional focus to those areas most in need of further enquiry and deployment of resource.

By widening the notional definition of organisational ‘health’ to include less obvious sensing/sentiment data, utility can also be gained as a part of predictive analytics, helping organisations to make sense of complex lag data sets and thereby identify patterns or trends that would otherwise be difficult to see or ascribe value.

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Change and disruption is the norm, there is an ever-increasing reliance on data and executive dashboards, a disparate and changing workforce, and the leader’s rule book has been thrown out of the window.

To add to this challenging context, the recent McKinsey & Co publication, “CEO Excellence” provides some uncomfortable statistics:

“Two in five CEOs within 18 months of taking the role are struggling. One in three, after three years, are asked to leave.”

“There’s some data that suggests that 60 percent of CEOs feel like they’re making it up as they go, because the role is one you can’t really prepare for. It’s one you’ve never had before.”

This was certainly my experience many years ago when becoming the Bristol Police Commander. I remember the huge desk dominating the office and a file with a list of community contacts……that was pretty much the sum of the handover. Oh, and the file on the St Pauls riot, to remind me that the historical context and the potential for community unrest was a real and present threat. Even in a city the size of Bristol I yearned for the sort of data and information that would be allow me to know what was really going on and what 1,500 people knew that I needed to know.

Taking over the helm of CEO is a monumental task and the actions he/she takes during their first three months as a new CEO will largely determine whether they succeed or fail.

Those first 90 days are a critical period and a window of opportunity to assess the organisation’s current state, spot the emerging threats and opportunities and identify the high impact areas.

Research by “CEO Excellence” suggests that only 1 in 12 CEOs will move from being an average performer to a top-quintile performer within a ten-year period. The best CEOs apply boldness to their approach, and this starts with their first 90 days.

Some of the most common mistakes CEOs make in the first 90 days include failing to listen, overestimating their abilities, neglecting culture and team dynamics and not setting clear priorities.

In many ways, the first 90 days is an arbitrary marker. The transition clearly takes longer. In fact, it takes more than six months for 62% of externally hired CEOs to become fully productive. However, this doesn’t negate the need to craft a 90-day plan. It underscores just how important it is for incoming executives to maximise their first 90 days through, “research, consultation and introspection” (Harvard Business Review).

Further work by the Harvard Business Review revealed “Seven Surprises for New CEOs.”

Surprise Three – “It is hard to know what is really going on”.  New CEOs discovered that what they used to know as a matter of course, because people shared openly and they we were able to get around the business, suddenly became filtered or missing completely. They were flooded with data, but reliable information was surprisingly scarce. Relationships had changed and it was so hard to get a clear picture of what was really going on.

Although obvious, as an incoming CEO, the main focus will be taking stock of where the organisation is now and where it needs to go, making sense of the business, if you will, “what’s the story here, what do I need to do next”.

Imagine that during the first 90 days you could find out:

• What’s really going on
• What’s likely to happen to performance
• If everyone is aligned and engaged
• If leaders are delivering
• If decision-making is fast and effective enough

How to make that happen?

Data, Dialogue, Speed

Ensure you have the right data to augment decision-making. Engage in the “fierce conversations” that are needed, remembering leadership is a contact sport…… AI will not replace the nuance of conversation, the twinkle in the eye, the shrug, the glance out of the window. People follow people. And…… work at speed. The time scale for making decisions, small and large, has reduced.

Photo by Towfiqu barbhuiya on Unsplash

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Whilst logical deduction (system two) is an attractive tool for the rendering of complex events (think here about public enquiries), it struggles to make sense of contexts riven by a profusion of emotional contradictions and responses and so these processes are marginalised or ignored. I suggest that Kahneman’s notion of fast intuitive thinking (system one) is a critical precursor to data-driven decision-making (system two). Intuitive sensing of situations, inherent in the human condition, is absent from the assumptive nature of many organisational interventions where ‘issues’ reside in narrow, logic-driven and pre-determined areas of interest; effectively a leap into system two deterministic thinking.

The failure of organisational change programmes are well-documented; they are often driven by rational or data-based assumptions, whilst the sentiment-based clues and cues driven by the Sensemaking (’what’s the story here?) processes of the people experiencing the journey are normally lost. The human element, with all its facets, remains the black box; from bias to culture and communications. Kahneman’s  thesis is that both system one and system two thinking sit within a continuum, that we describe as Sensemaking. Understanding how people intuitively and collectively respond to questions about their organisations provides valuable insight as to how their responses match to unfolding events.

Complex, evolving, environments cannot be fully engaged and understood by holding faith with established routines and meanings as they require continuous updating (‘what’s the story here?’). And even very capable people often make at least one big, basic, error  – i.e. rushing to change in the mistaken belief that they already know what they have got, where they are going and how to get there – with little time to appreciate the cost or recurrent impact of change on the people.

When Elon Musk [ac]claims that he uses ‘vibes’ to augment his decision-making it reflects his belief in the power and benefits that intuition plays in the decision-making and actions of people, particularly, of course, himself! The critical difference being that Musk can afford (emotionally and financially) to run with his ‘vibe’ (system one fast thinking) unencumbered by the orthodoxy and governance that he believes slows down less nimble and adroit decision-makers, dominated as it is by the need for detailed logical deduction and reassurance. It is not so much that the thinking of others is less nimble and adroit but more that they do not have the positional power of Musk to be so socially unrestrained, even when they have great ideas!

So how can a timely feedback loop from the people, that ensures that their ongoing experience, intelligence and perception, be factored into dynamic organisational change, without disrupting and adding to an already congested programme of work?

The basis of any system of intervention should be grafted upon a strong theoretical model (general/accurate), that environments should be broadly scanned for anomalies, disturbance or patterns (general/simple) and that this should be used to conduct subject area detailed investigation (simple/accurate) from which practical inference and interventions can be concluded. In short, a system capable of taking complex actions and deconstructing them into manageable information from which simple (not simplistic) conclusions can be formed. Put another way, a system that thinks complex so that people can do simple.

If we want to survive in a world replete with equivocality, we have to complicate our thinking and ask ‘what if’ questions rather than ‘why’ questions; the former assumption challenges us to think of possibilities (the unknown – expanding equivocality) whereas the latter assumption challenges us to think of probabilities (the known – reducing equivocality), it is only when we ask what is the situation? (the here and now) that we are able to deal with the consequences.

Tensense is an organisational diagnostic grounded in Organisational Sensemaking™ (a life-critical building block of human decision-making). It has the power to convert ‘gut instinct’ into not only verifiable and actionable data, but also to lay the foundations for predictive analytics by augmenting traditional empirical data sources with the latent knowledge and experience that abounds in all organisations.

We deliberately seek the visceral  “hell yes” or “hell no” responses (which normally stay hidden) in order to provide plausible indications about the emergence  of threat and opportunity.

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In today’s finance landscape filled with regulatory changes and evolving client requests, Organisational Sensemaking™ becomes an indispensable process to understand and enhance. Accountancy firms that are unable to capitalise on effective organisational sensemaking would be at risk of falling behind their competition, owing to ineffective strategies that don’t adapt with dynamic business demands. James March, a renowned organisational theorist, emphasises,

Sensemaking isn’t just a one-off event. It’s a dynamic, continuous process that continually shapes and reshapes the direction and decisions of an organisation.  

Forward-thinking accountancy firms capitalise on technological advancements and sophisticated analytical methodologies to gain insights from varied internal and external information sources.  

In this article, we elaborate on how accountancy firms can bolster their Organisational Sensemaking™ capabilities. We will underline key principles and offer best practices that can help firms derive more value from their data. 

Underlining Key Principles of Effective Sensemaking for Accountancy Firms

Organisational Sensemaking™ could be enhanced by considering three main pillars: clarity, consistency, and comprehension. Embracing these principles can help accountancy firms to navigate intricate financial landscapes, enabling them to maintain their competitive edge. 

Implementing clear and concise protocols can bridge glaring interpretative gaps, thus ensuring that the firm stays clear of misinformation and misinterpretation.  

Creating Strategies for Enhanced Sensemaking in Accountancy Firms 

Organisational sensemaking plays a decisive role in charting an accountancy firm’s reaction to market and regulatory changes.  

Three most effective strategies that firms can employ to improve their sensemaking capabilities: 

1. Streamline your data analysis to gain a clearer, more holistic picture of market realities. 

2. Create a learning-orientated culture within your organisation.  

3. Invest time and capital in procuring and utilising advanced analytics tools.  

To summarise, organisational sensemaking, given its pivotal role, merits attention and effort, particularly within the dynamic environment of the accountancy sector. By implementing a few careful measures and practices around sensemaking, firms are likely to observe better-informed decision-making outcomes and better operational efficiency. 

 “It has become an embedded way in which I run our board meetings. My CTO can’t believe we get such powerful insights from 16 questions, but we do. It has helped me effectively integrate acquisitions, identify high performing areas of the business and provide more management support to others.”

Paul Dickson Chief Executive 
For and on behalf of Armstrong Watson LLP 

Read Paul Dickson’s full testimonial here. Armstrong Watson Testimonial

Tensense.ai is sponsor of IAPA, the Leading Global Association of independent accounting, audit, tax, legal, advisory, financial, immigration and technology services firms.

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However, there’s a silver lining in the digital age for these new leaders – the use of technology to make sense of organisational data. That’s where Tensense’s Organisational Sensemaking™ Data comes into play.

Scanning the landscape with Tensense

Simply put, Tensense’s data gives new CEOs an X-ray view into the operation of their organisations. This goes beyond traditional metrics and key performance indicators to shed light on hidden issues that may not be easily identifiable – the ‘unknown unknowns’ that can derail an organisation’s progress.

McKinsey’s article highlights the importance for new CEOs to engage their stakeholders, foster a strong culture, and mobilise teams. Tensense’s data can help achieve these objectives by providing new CEOs with insights into their organisation’s internal dynamics, communication patterns, and potential blind spots.

Demystifying the unknown, unknowns

Tensense’s data goes beyond surface-level numbers to map out employee engagement levels, communication channels, team cohesion and other crucial factors that often determine the long-term success of an organisation. This depth of insight gives new CEOs an unprecedented tool to understand their organisation and make informed strategic decisions.

With Tensense’s Organisational Sensemaking™ data at their disposal, new CEOs can identify where problems lie, understand the root causes, and deploy strategies to address these issues. This can save significant time and energy better used for strategic planning and execution – essential skills for effective leadership underscored in McKinsey’s article.

From diagnosis to action

New CEOs can leverage Tensense’s data to complement their strategies for aligning the organisation and mobilising across levels. With this data, CEOs can better equip their teams for success, fostering a more cohesive, communicative, and efficient organisation. In conclusion, Tensense’s Organisational Sensemaking™ data is a powerful ally for new CEOs, offering them an advantage in understanding the intricacies of their organisation. This, combined with the invaluable guidelines from McKinsey’s insights on preparing for the CEO role, can be a game-changer for effective leadership.

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Given that Amazon is rightly perceived to be a leader in the use of data, it may be surprising what Jeff Bezos said a few years ago: “The thing I have noticed is that, when anecdotes and the data disagree, the anecdotes are usually right … You do need the data, but then you need to check that data with your intuition and your instincts.”

Essentially, Bezos has captured the dualism necessary to navigate the organisational journey by both checking the rear view mirror (data, by its very nature, can only reflect what has gone before, i.e. rational probability) and checking the cues and clues of the road ahead (analysis focusing on an unfolding event, i.e. intuitive plausibility).

At its core, our individual and collective sensemaking process seeks to answer “what’s  the story here, and therefore, what do I do next?” – essentially the intuitive plausibility reflected by Bezos. 

The process of adaptive change programmes is driven by rational or data-based assumption.  However, the sentiment-based clues and cues driven by the sensemaking processes of the people experiencing the journey are normally lost, and yet it is what goes on in the background, what people do not say or what they do not even see; what is written on the wall.. and they ignore the warning signs.  The human element, with all its facets, remains the black box; from bias to culture and communications.

Frustrating, but is it a surprise?  How would Jeff Bezos go about capturing the intuition and instincts of the other 1.5 million people in Amazon?

Photo by Ksenia Kudelkina on Unsplash

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A recent McKinsey piece  titled, ‘Seeing around corners: How to excel as a Chief of Staff’ (COS), aptly captures this notion: 

‘A COS serves as the principal’s eyes and ears, helping them anticipate and head off challenges and avoid surprises. One COS noted that senior leaders tend to bring only good news to the boss; a well-connected COS knows and informs their principal about what’s happening on the front lines, good or bad.’

This isn’t McKinsey’s first foray into the topic. They’ve touched upon a similar theme before: 

‘…..she/he [as CEO] is also the ultimate integrator, charged with identifying the issues that span the enterprise and formulating a response that brings all the right resources to bear. To do that well requires……….a snapshot view of the immediate issues and a time-lapse series to see into the future.

Whether it’s a CEO or a COS, the underlying challenge is consistent: timely identification and anticipation of issues. The traditional model assumes leaders possess an almost superhuman ability to navigate vast, intricate, and globally scattered organisations. However, in reality, relying solely on conventional information-gathering methods—like exhaustive surveys or consultant-led projects—might fall short in offering a clear, immediate perspective.

But there’s a solution on the horizon, and it doesn’t require a cape or superpowers!

Enter: Organisational Sensemaking™. It’s the mechanism through which individuals or teams can interpret and derive meaning from their shared experiences. This approach goes beyond just understanding; it’s about predicting. 

We advocate for Organisational Sensemaking™ not just as a conceptual framework, but as a practical tool. Implemented alongside predictive analytics, it assists enterprises in deciphering intricate data, unveiling patterns or trends that could easily be overlooked. This clarity empowers leaders to make informed decisions, pinpointing areas that demand attention and resource allocation.

In essence, whether you’re at the helm as a CEO or navigating the intricacies as a COS, with the right methodologies at your disposal, you truly can “see around corners”. The future awaits, and with the right tools, you’ll be more than prepared to meet it!

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