Thought-Immune Solutions
“The biggest nemesis to professional firms that consult with organizations in any field where implementation is the name of the game is the defensive routines in each system and the more encompassing defensive loops in which they are found. Immediately after competence in their respective domain of service is the capacity to engage defensive routines wherever they exist in order to reduce them.” (Argyris, 1985, p.349).
Flawed advice is what the gurus offer when it is similar in structure to the defensive reasoning of self-protecting routines. Flawed advice is also when the guru bypasses the defensive routines and offers advice on issues that does not eventually address the skilled incompetence. For more on skilled incompetence please see my previous article on related issues. Below are suggestions for some ways to “to engage defensive routines wherever they exist in order to reduce them.” Good starting points are the gurus themselves, specifically their vested expertise and their methods for offering it.
- To avoid using soft data, that is “data that is difficult to accept as valid descriptions of reality by individuals with contradictory views” (Argyris, 1985, p.75). When using “soft data” in opinions or personal convictions, to avoid justifications. Justifications which we gurus seemed to be very skilled at are self-referential logic: “my experience…”, “you can trust me, I have been around, but let us not talk about it anymore.“ Also, to intellectualise private opinions with statements like “(unnamed) research indicates…”etc. Furthermore, to generalise from an “one time verification”-experience by influencing the recipient to respond with “I have heard or had a similar experience (one time before)”. Lastly, by psychologising personal opinions through the use of very believable “pop-psychology of opposites”: “they are excellent only because deep down they have an inferiority complex”. In other words, trashing “good” by reframing it into something negative.
- To present recommendations or implementations in an action format: ““A full schema for a theory of action, then, would be as follows: “in situation S, if you want to achieve consequence C, under assumptions a . . . n, do A….” A theory of action is a theory of deliberate human behavior…. “(Argyris, 1990, p. 241ff).
- To be an example of behaviours which demonstrate at least the following cluster of values: the information and opinions are open for public testing and debate; people are invited to make free and informed decisions; that people have an internal commitment based on their personal conviction about the validity of the information and consequences of the proposed action. Behaviour shaped by these values has a lower possibility of demonstrating the same defensive routines with which the clients protect themselves ((See Argyris, 1999, p.182).
Conclusion: “Anxious managers grasp at management literature as a panacea for all their worries. Many firms run to management theory only when they are desperate. Their minds clouded by panic, they start out with exaggerated expectations, put the theory into practice for a few months, start to despair when it fails to produce results, and then turn to a new theory. Two years and twenty theories later, the business may well be bankrupt. But who is to blame: the theorists who failed to save the firm or the managers who got it into trouble in the first place?” (Micklethwaite and Wooldridge, p.374)
“It is possible to use the concept of defensive routines to explain one of the most persistent findings in trying to change the status quo in organizations. I refer to the fact that such change rarely lasts. Every time I dig into the histories of attempts to change organizations significantly, I find that during the early states, especially with the help of a driven charismatic leader (and financial resources), changes are made. The problems arise when the players begin to face dilemmas, paradoxes, and threats; that is when defensive routines come into play. The knowledge and competencies people have to deal with them are not only inadequate but also create regressions to the status quo.” (Argyris, 1985, p.343).
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.