Managing complexity: acknowledge the attraction patterns by supporting sensemaking and allowing the quality system to serve as the panoptic system

This paper is of a theoretical type ending with a model describing the frame and function of a quality system. Quality in health care is largely dependent on the behaviour and action of the health care staff. Furthermore behaviour and action emanate from the individual and group sensemaking. When viewing the organisation as a complex adaptive system, the necessity of becoming aware of, and co‐evolving with the process of sensemaking becomes very clear. It has potential to view the individual’s attraction patterns as the channel for creativity. The quality system can serve as the framework on which to enlighten this vital dimension. The concept of meaning status in the group is useful when it comes to managing a complex system through a quality system. When so, the core objective of the quality system is to support and enhance the awareness of all the disparate meanings (future‐perspective), stimulate reflection upon them and transform them into a collective meaning status (presence) in order to make effective decisions and a successful adaptation to change.