Personal and organizational histories occupy prominent figure positions in the figure-ground dichotomy, and that such histories are used to cope with the future is indicated by several pieces of evidence.
Does this help to explain the need for SBTF volunteers to situate themselves in time -- as a way to construct a history in Weick's "figure-ground construction" method of sensemaking for themselves and to that convey sense to others?
And if Weick has drawn the correct conclusion about how the past is used to enact the present, being able to note the differences may be even more imÂportant than being able to see the similarities. This is especially so in equivocal enactments, which Weick (1979, p. 201) described as involving a figure-ground construction, one in which the ground consists of the strange and unfamiliar
Weick describes the need to discern differences over similarities to effectively use past-present metaphors as a sense-making device.