The Third Lens: Multi‐ontology Sense‐making and Strategic Decision‐making

Citation

Na Thalang, T. (2010), "The Third Lens: Multi‐ontology Sense‐making and Strategic Decision‐making", International Journal of Operations & Production Management, Vol. 30 No. 2, pp. 226-227. https://doi.org/10.1108/01443571011018734

In The Third Lens, the importance of two elements – the nature of the strategic landscape and time – is highlighted. The first intellectual task is to examine whether the “third lens” or ontology of a project (its nature, work and strategic landscape) should influence the two other “lenses” (our epistemological and methodological choices) that create an understanding of the world we live in. Second, it considers the importance of time, especially the use of chronotopes, place in time that serve as reflection points for sense‐making and strategic decision‐making, both with respect to the situation where they take place as well as conceptual vehicles for managing multiple times and realities.

The book is the third chapter in a series that started over four years ago with organizational complexity and complexity as a sense‐making framework. The Third Lens, the third part of the series, embraces ontological diversity and proposes it as an important and novel way for increasing organizations' resiliency and adaptability with regard to forms of improved sense making and decision making. The aim is to provide a strong theoretical and practical basis for improving the sense making of global strategic landscapes and capacity to make strategic decisions.

The book comprises of four parts, which are divided into ten chapters. It contains 21 figures and two tables. It is written and edited by M. Aaltonen, and five co‐authors who contribute one paper each in the book. Part 1 begins with re‐setting our thoughts about strategic decision making (Chapter 1), then about sense making (Chapter 2), and time and quality of the strategic landscape (Chapter 3), in order to prepare the setting for the following expert papers.

Part 2 presents three perspectives, economic, political and generative, for modelling sense making from three experts. The Deutsche Bank's foresight model for evaluating long‐term growth (Formel‐G model) is provided in Chapter 4. A systematic framework and a political early warning response system for addressing global and regional threats is presented in Chapter 5 and in the sixth chapter the 3P model – platforms, pieces and probabilities is introduced.

Part 3 discusses the concept of causality in three perspectives: the sensitiveness to initial conditions (Chapter 7); making sense of the complex world by direct and indirect feed‐back loops (Chapter 8); and analysis of Aristotle's old concept of final cause (Chapter 10). Part 4 is the conclusion that assists the reader in understanding the previous chapters with respect to multi‐ontology sense‐making approach.

Each chapter is designed so the reader can access it independently, according to their own topic of interest. Every chapter also supports the other chapters. The organization of the text is simple to follow. Chapters 4‐6 emphasize more on practical issues while Chapters 7‐9 are recommended for those who are more interested in the theory side. The book is clearly written for twenty‐first century strategists, people, organizations, and highly recommended for the planner. The content of the book provides a crucial contribution and important perspectives on multi‐ontology sense making. The book also provides a useful review of previous literature and papers from leading experts on the respective perspectives.

The book is well‐organized, full of essential contexts, and a worthwhile read. However, in order to completely understand the full context of the book, the reader requires some prior basic knowledge of philosophy or strategy. To fulfil this gap more successfully, the unspecialised reader would perhaps have benefited from the usage of simpler terminology or inclusion of more explanation on some points. Nonetheless this is a good read.