Dr Mike Carter

Chief Scientific Officer

Mike Carter is the Chief Scientific Officer at Tensense and has extensive experience at senior leadership level in the private and public sectors. He is a specialist in the leadership of organisational change and holds a doctorate from the University of Bath.

For 10 years he was the Managing Director of Stratagem Consulting, for 5 years the CEO of Global Intelligence Group Solutions and is a former Director of Executive Development at the University of Exeter Business School.

Mike has consulted in most developed countries of the world for organisations that have included: ING Bank, The Foreign & Commonwealth Office, the NHS, EMI Music, Universal Music & Gillette. For three years, he led a project with Apple Corps (The Beatles) and Cirque du Soleil in London, Montreal and Las Vegas assisting these creative companies to develop The Beatles Love Show – now the most successful show in Las Vegas.

Mike has conducted research in the area of Organisational Sensemaking™ since 1988 and was appointed a Fellow of the University of Bath in 2005 and the University of Exeter in 2008. He has taught on numerous MBA, MSc  and executive development programmes in the areas of leadership and organisational change in the UK, US, Malaysia and Greece.  Mike co-authored the winning 2014 international research paper of the year in Human Relations and between 2014– 2016 he led a UK government grant aided research project with the University of Bath, the findings of which helped him create Tensense’s diagnostic tool.


Human intuition
January 2, 2024

Harnessing Intuition: Data Meets Human Insights

In the modern, corporate world, if we want to make any serious decision or measure a change project, we need to justify our workings by invariably pulling together some charts and stats from the available data, because that is verifiable and provable. However, data ‘drives’ the image in the rear-view mirror; sentiment (or evolving sensemaking) ‘drives’ […]

seeing around corners
November 2, 2023

The Art of Anticipation: Sensemaking in Leadership

In a modern business landscape defined by rapid changes and unforeseen challenges, the ability to “see around corners” is more vital then ever. It’s all about sensemaking, and leaders need to harness it effectively. A recent McKinsey piece  titled, ‘Seeing around corners: How to excel as a Chief of Staff’ (COS), aptly captures this notion:  […]

Science Road Map
October 10, 2023

Tensense.ai Science Road Map

This briefing note sets out the reasons and rationale for the development of the Tensense diagnostic as a distinct and differentiated means of measuring and reporting organisational sentiment from the perspective of the people who work in, and experience, performance-based activities on a daily basis. The science and origins of sensemaking are explained as a […]

The challenge of policing
April 1, 2023

The challenge for reform in policing

In an article in The Times, Sir Mark Rowley was attributed with saying that he needed to [effectively] take a head-on approach to the reform and organisational change of the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS). No mean feat, given the size of the organisation (c. 45,000 people) and the scope; everything from dealing with long-term sickness, […]

Sensemaking lessons from Apollo 13
March 26, 2023

“Houston, we have a problem”

On 13 April 1970 astronaut Commander Jim Lovell made one of the great understatements of the last century – “Houston, we have a problem”

Sensemaking Audit
March 20, 2023

The Case for Sensemaking Audits

Creating the right organisational culture and psychological safety necessary to give voice to quiet, diffident and dissenting colleagues is a laudable ambition.

whatsapp
March 9, 2023

Unfolding events are seldom grounded in logic

In a recent Sunday Times article, Matthew Syed attempts to put into perspective the recent purging excoriation of conduct by politicians and officials during the pandemic: ‘The WhatsApp witch-hunt chisels away at our sense of fair play’. His central thesis being one that will chime, not only with politicians, but all leaders who face a […]

business consulting
February 15, 2023

A new and unique alternative to the ‘discovery’ phase  employed by consulting practices  

This paper has not been written as an attack on [organisational] consulting practices, but it does make a strong case to suggest that some activities such as the cliché of ’30 graduates crawling over a company with their clipboards’ is now so ‘analogue’ as to be in the throes of redundancy. On a positive note […]

business opportunities
February 15, 2023

Why we remain committed and excited about the opportunities of Organisational Sensemaking TM

Timing, timing, timing! There has never been a better time to challenge the staid, outdated and outmoded forms of information gathering and dissemination in organisations, for which we offer a genuinely unique solution, based upon mimicking the science of sensemaking in the construction of our Organisational Sensemaking TM diagnostic.   Throughout the world organisations have received […]