DIRECTIONS: Questions is based on the passage below.
Think back to 1993. That is when the Centre for Disease Control came up against the
hantavirus in the South West. The virus made no sense. It had never appeared in
landlocked regions before, and it was killing people by attacking their lungs rather than
their kidneys, the virus’s usual target. It seemed to defy explanation. And that’s as close a
parallel to a cosmology episode as I can describe. Basically a cosmology episode happens
when people suddenly feel that the universe is no longer a rational, orderly system. What
makes such an episode shattering is that people suffer from the event and, at the same
time, lose the means ‘to recover from it. In this sense, a cosmology episode is the opposite
of a déjà vu experience. In moments of deja vu, everything suddenly feels familiar,
recognizable. By contrast, in a cosmology episode, everything seems strange. A person
feels like he has never been here before, has no idea of where he is, and has no idea who
can help him. An inevitable stare of panic ensues, and the individual becomes more and
more anxious until he finds it almost impossible to make sense of what is happening to
him.
The continual merging and divesting and recombining and changing of responsibilities
and bosses over the years has created immense cosmological episodes for business
people. Even senior executives are unsure of whom they are working for and why. So I
think it is fair to say that in the course of their careers, every manager will have a
cosmology episode: their worlds will get turned upside down. Having the kind of
alertness to weak signals that we see at High Response organizations can help managers avoid this particular psychological crisis. In the case of hantavirus, for example, the
puzzle was eventually solved when epidemiologists discovered that recent climatic
changes had produced an explosion in the rodent population that carried the virus, which
increased the likelihood that humans might be exposed to hantavirus. In cosmological
episodes, paying very close attention to details can definitely restore a sense of mastery.
What I have repeatedly noticed is that people who really get into trouble during these crisis are those who try to think everything through before taking action. The problem with defining and refining your hypothesis without testing them is that the world keeps changing, and your analysis gets further and further behind. So you have constantly got to
update your thinking while you are sitting there and reflecting. And that is why I am such
a proponent of what I call ‘sensemaking’. There are many definitions of ‘sensemaking; for
me it is the transformation of raw experience into intelligible world views. It’s a bit like
what mapmakers do when they try to make sense of an unfamiliar place by putting it on
paper. But the crucial point in cartography is that there is no one best map of a particular
place. Similarly sense-making lends itself to multiple conflicting interpretations, all of
which are plausible. If an organization finds itself unsure of where it’s going, or even
where its been, then it ought to be wide open to a lot of interpretations, al 1 of which can
lead to possible action. The action and its consequence then begin to edit the list of
interpretations down to a more manageable size.
And this is the point I wish to underscore. Action, tempered by reflection is the critical
component in recovery from cosmology episodes. Once you start to act, you can flesh out
your interpretations and rework them. It’s the action itself that gets you moving. There is
a beautiful, example of this. Several years ago a platoon of Hungarian soldiers got lost in
the Alps. One of the soldiers found a map in his pocket and the troops used it to get out
safely. Subsequently, however, the soldiers discovered that the map they used was in fact
the drawing of another mountain range the Pyrennes. In crisis leaders have to act to think.
A deja vu is a feeling where everything seems familiar, in order. Behind it, however,
is a tragedy for the appearance of order is illusory. Ignorance about the disorder as well
as non-experiencing of it builds the illusion. Such a characterization of deja vu is — its
use in the passage. (Choose the apt phrase to fill the gap)