Overcoming Organizational Defenses: Facilitating Organizational Learning [Paperback]

Borrowing from Seligman, the younger Baby-Boomers and later generations are the 1st in the history of the world to "have the choice" to be knowledge workers. This throws people together into complex social systems that require a new level of communication ability that's new to man as a species and is currently not taught in schools. So, like it or not, successfully dealing with "the soft stuff" in human organizations (unsticking "stuck" cultures) preceeds any real ability to build organizational-readiness for long-term value.

This classic book by Argyris is essential reading for 3 kinds of seeker-leaders:

(a) you're not afraid of Pandora's Box and would like to do your homework before engaging an OD interventionist

(b) you're considering the use of the 360-Feedback tool - BEWARE, as 180-feedback is 1 thing, but 360 is quite another !

(c) you're a people watcher who treasures that rare "nugget" of new insight into how people tick.

Argyris is the quintessential Industrial / Organizational Psychologist whose career goes back to the 1950's. Argyris has devoted his life to these 2 key goals:

(1) understanding what is required to integrate the individual into the collective (there is a DIFFERENCE between a workgroup and an *empowered* workgroup), and

(2) how to monitor & measure progress in a way that produces "ACTIONABLE KNOWLEDGE" for continuously improving this integration process. With Argyris -- the rubber meets the road and traction is imminent.

Let me paraphrase the Argyris model here as a teaser. There are 2 states of Human reasoning:

Model 1 = intra-personal BEFORE inter-personal (defensive / independent)
Model 2 = intra-personal .AND. inter-personal (productive / synergistic)

I'll also add in a 3rd state as my own corollary:
Model 3 = intra-personal AFTER inter-personal ( "Divine" )

Model 3 is beyond man's capability, Model 2 would be Stephen Covey's 7 Habits in action at rung 6 on the effectiveness ladder (both at the individual and group levels), and Model 1 is the actual/default "selfish" pattern of most people (regardless of education or any other control factor). Most newbies will "claim" Model 2 when they first encounter the teaching - but quickly find out that they're no different from anyone else. Next, just as tennis takes 6 months to master the basics with regular practice, so interventionists in the field state that the effort to move competently from Model 1 to Model 2 reasoning also individually requires 6-months. Then, at the group level, the breakthrough process can take even longer.

The hallmark of capitalism coming into the Industrial Age is that business always made the first move with new educational initiatives with its workforce. The school system and government would then move later to standardize it. So at this point in human history, Model 2 is not yet standard teaching in schools or business. If the human race is to successfully venture into the knowledge-age (and fully leverage the more advanced organizational forms such as the empowered workgroup) and break free of the baggage of the industrial age (reptilian brain command and control thinking), then competency with Model 2 will soon become an essential life-skill.

2 additional and essential books directly relevant to your work in understanding the potential for Model 2 in your organization are: William Noonan's "Discussing the Undiscussable", and Roger Martin's "The Responsibility Virus".

In closing, here are 3 additional take-aways from Argyris' work: (1) understanding Model 2 casts a whole new light on the cost of turnover. (2) *Empowered* workgroups are higher-maturity workgroup forms that beg for Model 2 capability to realize their true potential. (3) Workgroups descend in functional maturity quickly in the face of change to membership, scope of work, or roles & responsibilities; therefore, a key measure of organizational resilience will be the speed of return (governed in part by Model 2 ability) to the higher-maturity state after a higher-volume of change occurs.

A final caution: for best results, the OD interventionist should be an external person.

If you wonder why smart people with education and experience keep making the same old mistakes you will want to read this book. Let me hasten to add, however, that reading Argyris is often arduous. He is a scholar and writes like one. Having said that, he does have the answers and it is worth the effort to slog through his prose and get them.

Argryis takes the position that organizations actively defend themselves against change, and since the people who mount the defense are intelligent and experienced, the defenses work remarkably well. This book and his Knowledge for Action, are the executive's field manuals for battling this resistance.

Argyris fans know that he presents several recurring themes. One is skilled incompetence. Skilled incompetence is the result of being so good at practiced behaviors that we don't notice ourselves doing them. The practiced behaviors result in outcomes that we deem "safe" even if they make us miserable. We defend ourselves against demands to behave differently out of fear that we will surrender our safety.

Another Argyris staple is the "theory in use." Most of us have a theory of how we should act and a second theory about how we really do act. The real one is the "theory in use." The split between the two creates a dual identity that we are obliged to defend through the use of "fancy footwork" and elaborate "cover ups."

He theorizes that we conceal our dual identities by making their existence "undiscussable." And because we pride ourselves on being open and candid, we make the undiscussability undiscussable.

By now your head may be reeling, and that is just where Argyris always takes his readers. But there are rewards for the persistent reader. Argyris takes us to the heart of our own defenses, to our own denial of our skilled incompetence.

Another Argyris term that is of great significance is the French word malaise. He uses it to describe the pervasive sickish feeling that comes over an organization that is permeated with fancy footwork, double identities, and elaborate defensive routines that cannot be discussed. Once an organization descends into malaise, the road to recovery is highly problematic.

To summarize, this is one of the most insightful and valuable business books ever written, but it's a fairly tough read.

Chris Argyris presents a classic in organizational learning and a book that should become required reading for top executives (and middle management) everywhere. In fact, some of the concepts explored and researched here form the basis for some of the principles of the Learning Organization.

Argyris' discussion of theories-in-use, social virtues and skilled incompetence is a fascinating and eye-opening exercise, some of the examples he provides, while familiar to most of us, are presented in a manner that forces the reader to think, re-think and then re-think again! However, the book is written by an academician largely for academicians. If you want 'easy' reading; then this is not the book for you. If you are, on the other hand, serious about organizational learning, change and human performance, then this book should definitely be on your book-shelf.

The Book is organized into 9 chapters. The first 5 chapters explains the concepts, provides examples, and rationale while the remaining chapters (6 to 9) focus on solutions and ideas to overcome these issues.

1: Puzzles - An introduction to the types of errors we commit as managers and why we make them.
2: Human Theories of Control: Skilled Incompetence - How we develop theories in action, the social virtues we acquire and how do these combine theories to contribute to the errors we make.
3: Organizational Defensive Routines - What are organizational defensive routines and how they develop in the organization as a result of the governing values and action strategies of the individuals in the organization. Argyris uses several examples, one of which is the Challenger disaster to demonstrate his points.
4: Fancy Footwork and Malaise - Completes the ideas introduced in Chapter 3 with more examples and describes how we actually come to think and act in a manner that contributes to the development of defensive routines and extending it to what Argyris calls "fancy footwork" and "malaise."
5: Sound Advice: It Compounds the Problem - Argyris demonstrates that most "advice" organizations receive will only serve to compound the above problems and not actually solve them.
6: Reducing the Organizational Defense Pattern - How to win the pattern against "designed ignorance" and "skilled incompetence."
7: Making the New Theory of Managing Human Performance Come True - Introduction to the Commitment Theory of Management and shows how it is aligns well with effective solutions for overcoming organizational defenses, fancy footwork, and malaise.
8: Getting from Here to There - How to apply the concepts from chapters 6 and 7 to produce better, more effective organizations
9: Upping the Ante - Describes the practices that minimize the organizational defenses, the mind-set needed to overcome "denial" and raise the bar for the entire organization.