When setting a new strategy for their firm, managers engage in a range of sensegiving activities designed to introduce the new direction and explain the reasons for the change. These communication events commonly involve the use of strategic management terms and concepts to explain and justify the prescribed strategy. Literature thus far assumes that audiences understand and agree that these terms and underlying concepts are appropriate and relevant. Yet such views fail to explain strategy sensegiving in contexts where audiences of strategy presentations are ignorant or skeptical towards strategy concepts and ideas. We examine sensegiving under such conditions by analyzing a manager introducing a new strategy in a creative agency which expressed skepticism towards the concepts and practice of strategizing. Using data from video recordings of a sequence of internal strategy presentations, we identify three strategies designed to overcome prejudice towards strategic thinking while at the same time encouraging its use: winning the right to lead, finding resonance, and enrolling the audience into the strategy. We further find how these three sensegiving strategies are supported by carefully crafted visuals to either emphasize or de-emphasize aspects of the strategy and its supporting rationale. Our findings extend the literature on the practice of strategy by illustrating how the visual supports sensegiving efforts to guide a firm's interpretation of a proposed new strategic direction.

在为公司制定新战略时，管理者会进行一系列旨在引入新方向并解释变革原因的有意义的活动。这些沟通活动通常涉及使用战略管理术语和概念来解释和证明规定的战略。迄今为止，文献假设受众理解并同意这些术语和基本概念是适当且相关的。然而，在战略演示的受众对战略概念和想法无知或持怀疑态度的情况下，这种观点无法解释战略意义的赋予。我们通过分析一位在创意机构中引入新战略的经理来检验这种条件下的意义赋予，该经理对战略制定的概念和实践表示怀疑。利用一系列内部战略演示的视频记录中的数据，我们确定了三种旨在克服对战略思维的偏见同时鼓励其使用的策略：赢得领导权、找到共鸣以及让受众参与到战略中。我们进一步发现这三种感知策略如何通过精心设计的视觉效果来支持，以强调或弱化策略的各个方面及其支持原理。我们的研究结果通过说明视觉如何支持感知努力来指导公司对拟议的新战略方向的解释，从而扩展了有关战略实践的文献。