Here are my assumptions about organizations:
1.They exist as a collection of people who have a “contract” with each other about how to make decisions, how to deal with information, and how to craft their (sometimes) agreed on definition of success by doing certain prescribed behaviours.
2.Organisations cannot learn. It takes a certain critical mass of people (who make up the organization) to learn, before it can be said, “the organization has learned”.
3.Organisations fail by design as they succeed by design. The difference that makes the difference is in the extent of the skilled incompetence at work during threat or non-routine circumstances.
Skilled incompetence is displayed when people in companies automatically, rapidly and unconsciously behave in ways that protect themselves and others in situations that they define as threatening or embarrassing. This skilled incompetence (with reference to managerial stewardship) is due to the fact that information, decisions or positions are not questioned or tested as being for the best of the organization. They exist (as part of the “contract”) as a cover up of the incompetence. The responsible people may be very skilled and hardworking at trying to make wrong decisions to work, however the incompetence referred to here is in the process leading to the wrong decisions and/or priorities. (For more information, and definitions by Prof. Argyris, please go to “Can Good Decisions Come From Bad Politics” or contact me at armand@schuitema.co.za).
4.People are skilled in a large variety of ways of how they protect themselves or others of the “in-group”. The ways they go about these defensive routines (called organizational politics) are the methods of “maintaining the system” or “keeping the status quo” in the face of change.
Solutions to Thought-Immune Companies?
“Defensive routines exist in most organizations. The routines most dangerous to organizational learning and effectiveness are those that are used in the name of support, concern, strength, humanism, and realism. These ideas are culturally taught and accepted to be true…. This, in turn, produces learning systems in organizations that are actually against understanding how to deal with threatening issues so they can be eliminated.” (Argyris, 1985, p.337)
It is against this backdrop of skilled incompetence resulting in subtle and varied defensive routines that management and coaching gurus present their solutions. Companies do not necessarily want help with their defensive routines. If they did ask for that kind of help, they would have to acknowledge that they have them, and the question that then goes begging is: how will they deal with this threat and embarrassment? Being skilfully incompetent, of course they deal with all threat the same way they automatically, rapidly and unconsciously deal with other threats and embarrassments – it is in the nature of being skilled! This implies exploring answers to some questions like:
- Who wants to change: what and why?
- What problem(s) is offered (safely)? Why are the “stated problem(s)” offered? How does the undiscussables (organizational defenses) get factored in if they are by their very nature undiscussable? This information by its nature cannot and will not be shared.
iii. Client commitment to change? How much changes will the client tolerate? (People do what they do because it works and they are skilled at it (skilled incompetence). New things come up against a history of things that “work”, that is part of their successes, and of “how we do things around here”.)
- The outcomes, implied or agreed, determine the nature of the relationship: what is the designated outcome? What are the larger, company wide, effects of the intervention? Who will ask the question about the wider implications of the solution? Who will be accountable for the possible “management theory’s insensitivity to the wider effects of its ideas?” (Micklethwaite and Wooldridge, p.373).
Bibliography:
Argyris, Prof. Chris (1985): Strategy, Change and Defensive Routines. Pitman Publishing,
Mass. USA.
Argyris, Prof. Chris (1999): On Organizational Learning, 2nd. Edition. Blackwell
Publishing, Mass. USA.
Argyris, Prof. Chris (2000): Flawed Advice and the Management Trap. Oxford University
Press, UK.
Buckingham, Marcus and Coffman, Curt (1999): First, Break all the Rules. @Gallup
Organization. Simon and Schuster, UK Ltd.
Micklethwaite, John, and Wooldridge, Adrian (1997): The Witch Doctors. Mandarin
Paperbacks, Random House, UK.
Turner, Arthur (1982): “Consulting is more than Giving Advice”. Harvard Business Review,
Sept-Oct. 1982.