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Teaching Smart People How to Learn

by Chris Argyris

Included with this full-text

Harvard Business Review

article:

The Idea in Brief—the core idea

The Idea in Practice—putting the idea to work

1

Article Summary

2


A list of related materials, with annotations to guide further

exploration of the article’s ideas and applications

13

Further Reading

Every company faces a

learning dilemma: the

smartest people find it the

hardest to learn.

Reprint 91301Purchased by Jacqueline Conway ([email protected]) on September 30, 2012

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page 1

The Idea in Brief The Idea in Practice

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Problem solving is an example of

single-loop learning

. You identify an error and apply a particular remedy to correct it. But genuine learning involves an extra step, in which you reflect on your assumptions and test the validity of your hypotheses. Achiev-ing this

double-loop learning

is more than a matter of motivation—you have to reflect on the

way

you think.

Failure forces you to reflect on your as-sumptions and inferences. Which is why an organization’s smartest and most successful employees are often such poor learners: they haven’t had the opportunity for intro-spection that failure affords. So when they do fail—or merely underperform—they can be surprisingly defensive. Instead of critically examining their own behavior, they cast blame outward—on anyone or anything they can.

People often profess to be open to critique and new learning, but their actions suggest a very different set of governing values or

theories-in-use:

•

the desire to remain in unilateral control

•

the goal of maximizing “winning” while minimizing “losing”

•

the belief that negative feelings should be suppressed

•

the desire to appear as rational as possible.

Taken together, these values betray a pro-foundly defensive posture: a need to avoid embarrassment, threat, or feelings of vulnera-bility and incompetence. This

closed-loop reasoning

explains why the mere encourage-ment of open inquiry can be intimidating to some. And it’s especially relevant to the be-havior of many of the most highly skilled and best-trained employees. Behind their high as-pirations are an equally high fear of failure and a tendency to be ashamed when they don’t live up to their high standards. Consequently, they become brittle and despondent in situa-tions in which they don’t excel immediately.

Fortunately, it

is

possible for individuals and organizations to develop more productive patterns of behavior. Two suggestions for how to make this happen:

1. Apply the same kind of “tough reasoning” you use to conduct strategic analysis.

Col-lect the most objective data you can find. Make your inferences explicit and test them constantly. Submit your conclusions to the toughest tests of all: make sure they aren’t self-serving or impossible for others to verify.

2. Senior managers must model the desired changes first.

When the leadership demon-strates its willingness to examine critically its own theories-in-use, changing them as indicated, everyone will find it easier to do the same.

Example:

The CEO of an organizational-development firm created a case study to address real problems caused by the intense competi-tion among his direct reports. In a para-graph, he described a meeting he intended to have with his subordinates. Then he wrote down what he planned to say, how he thought his subordinates would re-spond, as well any thoughts or feelings he thought he might have but not express for fear of derailing the conversation. Instead of actually holding the meeting, he analyzed the scenario he had developed

with

his di-rect reports. The result was an illuminating conversation in which the CEO and his sub-ordinates were able to circumvent the closed-loop reasoning that had character-ized so many prior discussions.

Purchased by Jacqueline Conway ([email protected]) on September 30, 2012


by Chris Argyris

harvard business review • may–june 1991 page 2

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D.

Every company faces a learning dilemma: the smartest people find it

the hardest to learn.

Any company that aspires to succeed in thetougher business environment of the 1990smust first resolve a basic dilemma: success inthe marketplace increasingly depends onlearning, yet most people don’t know how tolearn. What’s more, those members of the or-ganization that many assume to be the bestat learning are, in fact, not very good at it. Iam talking about the well-educated, high-powered, high-commitment professionalswho occupy key leadership positions in themodern corporation.

Most companies not only have tremendousdifficulty addressing this learning dilemma;they aren’t even aware that it exists. The rea-son: they misunderstand what learning is andhow to bring it about. As a result, they tend tomake two mistakes in their efforts to become alearning organization.

First, most people define learning too nar-rowly as mere “problem solving,” so they focuson identifying and correcting errors in the ex-ternal environment. Solving problems is im-portant. But if learning is to persist, managers

and employees must also look inward. Theyneed to reflect critically on their own behavior,identify the ways they often inadvertently con-tribute to the organization’s problems, andthen change how they act. In particular, theymust learn how the very way they go about de-fining and solving problems can be a source ofproblems in its own right.

I have coined the terms “single loop” and“double loop” learning to capture this crucialdistinction. To give a simple analogy: a ther-mostat that automatically turns on the heatwhenever the temperature in a room dropsbelow 68 degrees is a good example of single-loop learning. A thermostat that could ask,“Why am I set at 68 degrees?” and then ex-plore whether or not some other tempera-ture might more economically achieve thegoal of heating the room would be engagingin double-loop learning.

Highly skilled professionals are frequentlyvery good at single-loop learning. After all,they have spent much of their lives acquiringacademic credentials, mastering one or a




number of intellectual disciplines, and ap-plying those disciplines to solve real-worldproblems. But ironically, this very fact helpsexplain why professionals are often so bad atdouble-loop learning.

Put simply, because many professionals arealmost always successful at what they do, theyrarely experience failure. And because theyhave rarely failed, they have never learnedhow to learn from failure. So whenever theirsingle-loop learning strategies go wrong, theybecome defensive, screen out criticism, andput the “blame” on anyone and everyone butthemselves. In short, their ability to learnshuts down precisely at the moment theyneed it the most.

The propensity among professionals to be-have defensively helps shed light on the secondmistake that companies make about learning.The common assumption is that getting peo-ple to learn is largely a matter of motivation.When people have the right attitudes and com-mitment, learning automatically follows. Socompanies focus on creating new organiza-tional structures—compensation programs,performance reviews, corporate cultures, andthe like—that are designed to create motivatedand committed employees.

But effective double-loop learning is notsimply a function of how people feel. It is areflection of how they think—that is, the cog-nitive rules or reasoning they use to designand implement their actions. Think of theserules as a kind of “master program” stored inthe brain, governing all behavior. Defensivereasoning can block learning even when theindividual commitment to it is high, just as acomputer program with hidden bugs can pro-duce results exactly the opposite of what itsdesigners had planned.

Companies can learn how to resolve thelearning dilemma. What it takes is to make theways managers and employees reason abouttheir behavior a focus of organizational learn-ing and continuous improvement programs.Teaching people how to reason about their be-havior in new and more effective ways breaksdown the defenses that block learning.

All of the examples that follow involve aparticular kind of professional: fast-track con-sultants at major management consultingcompanies. But the implications of my argu-ment go far beyond this specific occupationalgroup. The fact is, more and more jobs—no

matter what the title—are taking on the con-tours of “knowledge work.” People at all levelsof the organization must combine the masteryof some highly specialized technical expertisewith the ability to work effectively in teams,form productive relationships with clients andcustomers, and critically reflect on and thenchange their own organizational practices.And the nuts and bolts of management—whether of high-powered consultants or ser-vice representatives, senior managers orfactory technicians—increasingly consists ofguiding and integrating the autonomous butinterconnected work of highly skilled people.

How Professionals Avoid Learning

For 15 years, I have been conducting in-depthstudies of management consultants. I decidedto study consultants for a few simple reasons.First, they are the epitome of the highly edu-cated professionals who play an increasinglycentral role in all organizations. Almost all ofthe consultants I’ve studied have MBAs fromthe top three or four U.S. business schools.They are also highly committed to their work.For instance, at one company, more than 90%of the consultants responded in a survey thatthey were “highly satisfied” with their jobs andwith the company.

I also assumed that such professional con-sultants would be good at learning. After all,the essence of their job is to teach others howto do things differently. I found, however, thatthese consultants embodied the learning di-lemma. The most enthusiastic about continu-ous improvement in their own organizations,they were also often the biggest obstacle to itscomplete success.

As long as efforts at learning and changefocused on external organizational factors—job redesign, compensation programs, perfor-mance reviews, and leadership training—theprofessionals were enthusiastic participants.Indeed, creating new systems and structureswas precisely the kind of challenge that well-educated, highly motivated professionalsthrived on.

And yet the moment the quest for continu-ous improvement turned to the professionals’

own

performance, something went wrong. Itwasn’t a matter of bad attitude. The profes-sionals’ commitment to excellence was genu-ine, and the vision of the company was clear.Nevertheless, continuous improvement did

Chris Argyris

is the James B. Conant Professor at the Harvard graduate schools of business and education. His most recent book,

Overcoming Organizational Defenses,

was published by Allyn and Bacon in 1990. Among his previous HBR articles are “Double Loop Learning in Organizations” (September–October 1977) and “Skilled Incompetence” (September–October 1986).




not persist. And the longer the continuousimprovement efforts continued, the greaterthe likelihood that they would produce ever-diminishing returns.

What happened? The professionals began tofeel embarrassed. They were threatened by theprospect of critically examining their own rolein the organization. Indeed, because they wereso well paid (and generally believed that theiremployers were supportive and fair), the ideathat their performance might not be at its bestmade them feel guilty.

Far from being a catalyst for real change,such feelings caused most to react defensively.They projected the blame for any problemsaway from themselves and onto what they saidwere unclear goals, insensitive and unfair lead-ers, and stupid clients.

Consider this example. At a premier man-agement consulting company, the manager ofa case team called a meeting to examine theteam’s performance on a recent consultingproject. The client was largely satisfied and hadgiven the team relatively high marks, but themanager believed the team had not createdthe value added that it was capable of and thatthe consulting company had promised. In thespirit of continuous improvement, he felt thatthe team could do better. Indeed, so did someof the team members.

The manager knew how difficult it was forpeople to reflect critically on their own workperformance, especially in the presence oftheir manager, so he took a number of stepsto make possible a frank and open discussion.He invited to the meeting an outside consult-ant whom team members knew andtrusted—“just to keep me honest,” he said. Healso agreed to have the entire meeting tape-recorded. That way, any subsequent confu-sions or disagreements about what went onat the meeting could be checked against thetranscript. Finally, the manager opened themeeting by emphasizing that no subject wasoff limits—including his own behavior.

“I realize that you may believe you cannotconfront me,” the manager said. “But I en-courage you to challenge me. You have a re-sponsibility to tell me where you think theleadership made mistakes, just as I have theresponsibility to identify any I believe youmade. And all of us must acknowledge ourown mistakes. If we do not have an open dia-logue, we will not learn.”

The professionals took the manager up onthe first half of his invitation but quietly ig-nored the second. When asked to pinpointthe key problems in the experience with theclient, they looked entirely outside them-selves. The clients were uncooperative andarrogant. “They didn’t think we could helpthem.” The team’s own managers were un-available and poorly prepared. “At times, ourmanagers were not up to speed before theywalked into the client meetings.” In effect, theprofessionals asserted that they were helplessto act differently—not because of any limita-tions of their own but because of the limita-tions of others.

The manager listened carefully to the teammembers and tried to respond to their criti-cisms. He talked about the mistakes that hehad made during the consulting process. Forexample, one professional objected to the waythe manager had run the project meetings. “Isee that the way I asked questions closed downdiscussions,” responded the manager. “I didn’tmean to do that, but I can see how you mighthave believed that I had already made up mymind.” Another team member complainedthat the manager had caved in to pressurefrom his superior to produce the project reportfar too quickly, considering the team’s heavywork load. “I think that it was my responsibil-ity to have said no,” admitted the manager. “Itwas clear that we all had an immense amountof work.”

Finally, after some three hours of discussionabout his own behavior, the manager began toask the team members if there were any errors

they

might have made. “After all,” he said, “thisclient was not different from many others.How can we be more effective in the future?”

The professionals repeated that it was re-ally the clients’ and their own managers’fault. As one put it, “They have to be open tochange and want to learn.” The more themanager tried to get the team to examine itsown responsibility for the outcome, the morethe professionals bypassed his concerns. Thebest one team member could suggest was forthe case team to “promise less”—implyingthat there was really no way for the group toimprove its performance.

The case team members were reacting de-fensively to protect themselves, even thoughtheir manager was not acting in ways that anoutsider would consider threatening. Even if

Professionals embody

the learning dilemma:

they are enthusiastic

about continuous

improvement—and

often the biggest obstacle

to its success.




there were some truth to their charges—theclients may well have been arrogant andclosed, their own managers distant—the waythey presented these claims was guaranteed tostop learning. With few exceptions, the profes-sionals made attributions about the behaviorof the clients and the managers but never pub-licly tested their claims. For instance, they saidthat the clients weren’t motivated to learn butnever really presented any evidence support-ing that assertion. When their lack of concreteevidence was pointed out to them, they simplyrepeated their criticisms more vehemently.

If the professionals had felt so stronglyabout these issues, why had they never men-tioned them during the project? According tothe professionals, even this was the fault ofothers. “We didn’t want to alienate the client,”argued one. “We didn’t want to be seen aswhining,” said another.

The professionals were using their criti-cisms of others to protect themselves fromthe potential embarrassment of having toadmit that perhaps they too had contributedto the team’s less-than-perfect performance.What’s more, the fact that they kept repeatingtheir defensive actions in the face of the man-ager’s efforts to turn the group’s attention toits own role shows that this defensivenesshad become a reflexive routine. From the pro-fessionals’ perspective, they weren’t resisting;they were focusing on the “real” causes. In-deed, they were to be respected, if not con-gratulated, for working as well as they didunder such difficult conditions.

The end result was an unproductive paral-lel conversation. Both the manager and theprofessionals were candid; they expressedtheir views forcefully. But they talked pasteach other, never finding a common languageto describe what had happened with the cli-ent. The professionals kept insisting that thefault lay with others. The manager kept try-ing, unsuccessfully, to get the professionalsto see how they contributed to the state ofaffairs they were criticizing. The dialogue ofthis parallel conversation looks like this:

Professionals:

“The clients have to be open.They must want to change.”

Manager:

“It’s our task to help them see thatchange is in their interest.”

Professionals:

“But the clients didn’t agreewith our analyses.”

Manager:

“If they didn’t think our ideas were

right, how might we have convinced them?”

Professionals:

“Maybe we need to have moremeetings with the client.”

Manager:

“If we aren’t adequately preparedand if the clients don’t think we’re credible,how will more meetings help?”

Professionals:

“There should be better com-munication between case team members andmanagement.”

Manager:

“I agree. But professionals shouldtake the initiative to educate the managerabout the problems they are experiencing.”

Professionals:

“Our leaders are unavailableand distant.”

Manager:

“How do you expect us to knowthat if you don’t tell us?”

Conversations such as this one dramaticallyillustrate the learning dilemma. The problemwith the professionals’ claims is not that theyare wrong but that they aren’t useful. By con-stantly turning the focus away from their ownbehavior to that of others, the professionalsbring learning to a grinding halt. The man-ager understands the trap but does not knowhow to get out of it. To learn how to do thatrequires going deeper into the dynamics ofdefensive reasoning—and into the specialcauses that make professionals so prone to it.

Defensive Reasoning and the Doom Loop

What explains the professionals’ defensive-ness? Not their attitudes about change orcommitment to continuous improvement;they really wanted to work more effectively.Rather, the key factor is the way they reasonedabout their behavior and that of others.

It is impossible to reason anew in every situ-ation. If we had to think through all the possi-ble responses every time someone asked, “Howare you?” the world would pass us by. There-fore, everyone develops a theory of action—aset of rules that individuals use to design andimplement their own behavior as well as tounderstand the behavior of others. Usually,these theories of actions become so taken forgranted that people don’t even realize they areusing them.

One of the paradoxes of human behavior,however, is that the master program people ac-tually use is rarely the one they think they use.Ask people in an interview or questionnaire toarticulate the rules they use to govern their ac-tions, and they will give you what I call their

It’s not enough to talk

candidly. Professionals

can still find themselves

talking past each other.




“espoused” theory of action. But observe thesesame people’s behavior, and you will quicklysee that this espoused theory has very little todo with how they actually behave. For exam-ple, the professionals on the case team saidthey believed in continuous improvement, andyet they consistently acted in ways that madeimprovement impossible.

When you observe people’s behavior andtry to come up with rules that would makesense of it, you discover a very different the-ory of action—what I call the individual’s“theory-in-use.” Put simply, people consis-tently act inconsistently, unaware of the con-tradiction between their espoused theoryand their theory-in-use, between the waythey think they are acting and the way theyreally act.

What’s more, most theories-in-use rest onthe same set of governing values. There seemsto be a universal human tendency to designone’s actions consistently according to fourbasic values:

1. To remain in unilateral control;2. To maximize “winning” and minimize

“losing”;3. To suppress negative feelings; and4. To be as “rational” as possible—by which

people mean defining clear objectives andevaluating their behavior in terms of whetheror not they have achieved them.

The purpose of all these values is to avoidembarrassment or threat, feeling vulnerableor incompetent. In this respect, the masterprogram that most people use is profoundlydefensive. Defensive reasoning encouragesindividuals to keep private the premises, in-ferences, and conclusions that shape theirbehavior and to avoid testing them in a trulyindependent, objective fashion.

Because the attributions that go into de-fensive reasoning are never really tested, itis a closed loop, remarkably impervious toconflicting points of view. The inevitable re-sponse to the observation that somebody isreasoning defensively is yet more defensivereasoning. With the case team, for example,whenever anyone pointed out the profession-als’ defensive behavior to them, their initialreaction was to look for the cause in some-body else—clients who were so sensitive thatthey would have been alienated if the consult-ants had criticized them or a manager soweak that he couldn’t have taken it had the

consultants raised their concerns with him. Inother words, the case team members onceagain denied their own responsibility by ex-ternalizing the problem and putting it onsomeone else.

In such situations, the simple act of en-couraging more open inquiry is often at-tacked by others as “intimidating.” Those whodo the attacking deal with their feelingsabout possibly being wrong by blaming themore open individual for arousing thesefeelings and upsetting them.

Needless to say, such a master program in-evitably short-circuits learning. And for anumber of reasons unique to their psychol-ogy, well-educated professionals are espe-cially susceptible to this.

Nearly all the consultants I have studiedhave stellar academic records. Ironically,their very success at education helps explainthe problems they have with learning. Be-fore they enter the world of work, their livesare primarily full of successes, so they haverarely experienced the embarrassment andsense of threat that comes with failure. As aresult, their defensive reasoning has rarelybeen activated. People who rarely experi-ence failure, however, end up not knowinghow to deal with it effectively. And thisserves to reinforce the normal human ten-dency to reason defensively.

In a survey of several hundred young con-sultants at the organizations I have been study-ing, these professionals describe themselves asdriven internally by an unrealistically highideal of performance: “Pressure on the job isself-imposed.” “I must not only do a good job; Imust also be the best.” “People around here arevery bright and hardworking; they are highlymotivated to do an outstanding job.” “Most ofus want not only to succeed but also to do so atmaximum speed.”

These consultants are always comparingthemselves with the best around them andconstantly trying to better their own perfor-mance. And yet they do not appreciate beingrequired to compete openly with each other.They feel it is somehow inhumane. They preferto be the individual contributor—what mightbe termed a “productive loner.”

Behind this high aspiration success is anequally high fear of failure and a propensity tofeel shame and guilt when they do fail to meettheir high standards. “You must avoid mis-

The very success of

professionals at

education helps explain

the problems they have

with learning.




takes,” said one. “I hate making them. Many ofus fear failure, whether we admit it or not.”

To the extent that these consultants haveexperienced success in their lives, they havenot had to be concerned about failure andthe attendant feelings of shame and guilt.But to exactly the same extent, they alsohave never developed the tolerance for feel-ings of failure or the skills to deal with thesefeelings. This in turn has led them not onlyto fear failure but also to fear the fear of fail-ure itself. For they know that they will notcope with it superlatively—their usual levelof aspiration.

The consultants use two intriguing meta-phors to describe this phenomenon. They talkabout the “doom loop” and “doom zoom.” Of-ten, consultants will perform well on the caseteam, but because they don’t do the jobs per-fectly or receive accolades from their manag-ers, they go into a doom loop of despair. Andthey don’t ease into the doom loop, theyzoom into it.

As a result, many professionals have ex-tremely “brittle” personalities. When suddenlyfaced with a situation they cannot immedi-ately handle, they tend to fall apart. Theycover up their distress in front of the client.They talk about it constantly with their fellowcase team members. Interestingly, these con-versations commonly take the form of bad-mouthing clients.

Such brittleness leads to an inappropriatelyhigh sense of despondency or even despairwhen people don’t achieve the high levels ofperformance they aspire to. Such despon-dency is rarely psychologically devastating,but when combined with defensive reasoning,it can result in a formidable predispositionagainst learning.

There is no better example of how this brit-tleness can disrupt an organization than per-formance evaluations. Because it representsthe one moment when a professional mustmeasure his or her own behavior against someformal standard, a performance evaluation isalmost tailor-made to push a professional intothe doom loop. Indeed, a poor evaluation canreverberate far beyond the particular individ-ual involved to spark defensive reasoningthroughout an entire organization.

At one consulting company, managementestablished a new performance-evaluation pro-cess that was designed to make evaluations

both more objective and more useful to thosebeing evaluated. The consultants participatedin the design of the new system and in generalwere enthusiastic because it corresponded totheir espoused values of objectivity and fair-ness. A brief two years into the new process,however, it had become the object of dissatis-faction. The catalyst for this about-face was thefirst unsatisfactory rating.

Senior managers had identified six consult-ants whose performance they consideredbelow standard. In keeping with the new eval-uation process, they did all they could to com-municate their concerns to the six and to helpthem improve. Managers met with each indi-vidual separately for as long and as often asthe professional requested to explain the rea-sons behind the rating and to discuss whatneeded to be done to improve—but to noavail. Performance continued at the same lowlevel and, eventually, the six were let go.

When word of the dismissal spread throughthe company, people responded with confu-sion and anxiety. After about a dozen consult-ants angrily complained to management, theCEO held two lengthy meetings where em-ployees could air their concerns.

At the meetings, the professionals made avariety of claims. Some said the performance-evaluation process was unfair because judgmentswere subjective and biased and the criteria forminimum performance unclear. Others sus-pected that the real cause for the dismissals waseconomic and that the performance-evaluationprocedure was just a fig leaf to hide the fact thatthe company was in trouble. Still others arguedthat the evaluation process was antilearning. Ifthe company were truly a learning organization,as it claimed, then people performing below theminimum standard should be taught how toreach it. As one professional put it: “We were toldthat the company did not have an up-or-out pol-icy. Up-or-out is inconsistent with learning. Youmisled us.”

The CEO tried to explain the logic behindmanagement’s decision by grounding it in thefacts of the case and by asking the profession-als for any evidence that might contradictthese facts.

Is there subjectivity and bias in the evalua-tion process? Yes, responded the CEO, but “westrive hard to reduce them. We are constantlytrying to improve the process. If you have anyideas, please tell us. If you know of someone

When professionals don’t

do their jobs perfectly,

they zoom into a “doom

loop.”




treated unfairly, please bring it up. If any ofyou feel that you have been treated unfairly,let’s discuss it now or, if you wish, privately.”

Is the level of minimum competence toovague? “We are working to define minimumcompetence more clearly,” he answered. “Inthe case of the six, however, their perfor-mance was so poor that it wasn’t difficult toreach a decision.” Most of the six had receivedtimely feedback about their problems. Andin the two cases where people had not, thereason was that they had never taken the re-sponsibility to seek out evaluations—and, in-deed, had actively avoided them. “If you haveany data to the contrary,” the CEO added,“let’s talk about it.”

Were the six asked to leave for economic rea-sons? No, said the CEO. “We have more workthan we can do, and letting professionals go isextremely costly for us. Do any of you have anyinformation to the contrary?”

As to the company being antilearning, infact, the entire evaluation process was de-signed to encourage learning. When a profes-sional is performing below the minimum level,the CEO explained, “we jointly design remedialexperiences with the individual. Then we lookfor signs of improvement. In these cases, eitherthe professionals were reluctant to take onsuch assignments or they repeatedly failedwhen they did. Again, if you have informationor evidence to the contrary, I’d like to hearabout it.”

The CEO concluded: “It’s regrettable, butsometimes we make mistakes and hire thewrong people. If individuals don’t produce andrepeatedly prove themselves unable to im-prove, we don’t know what else to do exceptdismiss them. It’s just not fair to keep poorlyperforming individuals in the company. Theyearn an unfair share of the financial rewards.”

Instead of responding with data of theirown, the professionals simply repeated theiraccusations but in ways that consistently con-tradicted their claims. They said that a genuinelyfair evaluation process would contain clearand documentable data about performance—but they were unable to provide firsthand ex-amples of the unfairness that they impliedcolored the evaluation of the six dismissed em-ployees. They argued that people shouldn’t bejudged by inferences unconnected to their ac-tual performance—but they judged manage-ment in precisely this way. They insisted that

management define clear, objective, and un-ambiguous performance standards—but theyargued that any humane system would takeinto account that the performance of a profes-sional cannot be precisely measured. Finally,they presented themselves as champions oflearning—but they never proposed any criteriafor assessing whether an individual might beunable to learn.

In short, the professionals seemed to holdmanagement to a different level of perfor-mance than they held themselves. In their con-versation at the meetings, they used many ofthe features of ineffective evaluation that theycondemned—the absence of concrete data, forexample, and the dependence on a circularlogic of “heads we win, tails you lose.” It isas if they were saying, “Here are the featuresof a fair performance-evaluation system. Youshould abide by them. But we don’t have towhen we are evaluating you.”

Indeed, if we were to explain the profession-als’ behavior by articulating rules that wouldhave to be in their heads in order for them toact the way they did, the rules would looksomething like this:

1. When criticizing the company, state yourcriticism in ways that you believe are valid—but also in ways that prevent others from de-ciding for themselves whether your claim tovalidity is correct.

2. When asked to illustrate your criticisms,don’t include any data that others could use todecide for themselves whether the illustrationsare valid.

3. State your conclusions in ways that dis-guise their logical implications. If others pointout those implications to you, deny them.

Of course, when such rules were describedto the professionals, they found them abhor-rent. It was inconceivable that these rulesmight explain their actions. And yet in defend-ing themselves against this observation, theyalmost always inadvertently confirmed therules.

Learning How to Reason Productively

If defensive reasoning is as widespread as Ibelieve, then focusing on an individual’s at-titudes or commitment is never enough toproduce real change. And as the previous ex-ample illustrates, neither is creating neworganizational structures or systems. The

Performance evaluation

is tailor-made to push

professionals into the

doom loop.




problem is that even when people are genu-inely committed to improving their perfor-mance and management has changed itsstructures in order to encourage the “right”kind of behavior, people still remain lockedin defensive reasoning. Either they remainunaware of this fact, or if they do becomeaware of it, they blame others.

There is, however, reason to believe that or-ganizations can break out of this vicious cir-cle. Despite the strength of defensive reason-ing, people genuinely strive to produce whatthey intend. They value acting competently.Their self-esteem is intimately tied up withbehaving consistently and performing effec-tively. Companies can use these universalhuman tendencies to teach people how toreason in a new way—in effect, to change themaster programs in their heads and thus re-shape their behavior.

People can be taught how to recognize thereasoning they use when they design andimplement their actions. They can begin toidentify the inconsistencies between theirespoused and actual theories of action. Theycan face up to the fact that they uncon-sciously design and implement actions thatthey do not intend. Finally, people can learnhow to identify what individuals and groupsdo to create organizational defenses and howthese defenses contribute to an organiza-tion’s problems.

Once companies embark on this learningprocess, they will discover that the kind of rea-soning necessary to reduce and overcome orga-nizational defenses is the same kind of “toughreasoning” that underlies the effective use ofideas in strategy, finance, marketing, manufac-turing, and other management disciplines. Anysophisticated strategic analysis, for example,depends on collecting valid data, analyzing itcarefully, and constantly testing the inferencesdrawn from the data. The toughest tests are re-served for the conclusions. Good strategistsmake sure that their conclusions can withstandall kinds of critical questioning.

So too with productive reasoning abouthuman behavior. The standard of analysis isjust as high. Human resource programs nolonger need to be based on “soft” reasoningbut should be as analytical and as data-drivenas any other management discipline.

Of course, that is not the kind of reasoningthe consultants used when they encountered

problems that were embarrassing or threaten-ing. The data they collected was hardly objec-tive. The inferences they made rarely becameexplicit. The conclusions they reached werelargely self-serving, impossible for others totest, and as a result, “self-sealing,” imperviousto change.

How can an organization begin to turn thissituation around, to teach its members howto reason productively? The first step is formanagers at the top to examine critically andchange their own theories-in-use. Until se-nior managers become aware of how theyreason defensively and the counterproductiveconsequences that result, there will be littlereal progress. Any change activity is likely tobe just a fad.

Change has to start at the top because oth-erwise defensive senior managers are likelyto disown any transformation in reasoningpatterns coming from below. If professionalsor middle managers begin to change the waythey reason and act, such changes are likely toappear strange—if not actually dangerous—to those at the top. The result is an unstablesituation where senior managers still believethat it is a sign of caring and sensitivity tobypass and cover up difficult issues, whiletheir subordinates see the very same actionsas defensive.

The key to any educational experience de-signed to teach senior managers how to reasonproductively is to connect the program to realbusiness problems. The best demonstration ofthe usefulness of productive reasoning is forbusy managers to see how it can make a directdifference in their own performance and inthat of the organization. This will not happenovernight. Managers need plenty of opportu-nity to practice the new skills. But once theygrasp the powerful impact that productive rea-soning can have on actual performance, theywill have a strong incentive to reason produc-tively not just in a training session but in alltheir work relationships.

One simple approach I have used to get thisprocess started is to have participants pro-duce a kind of rudimentary case study. Thesubject is a real business problem that themanager either wants to deal with or hastried unsuccessfully to address in the past.Writing the actual case usually takes less thanan hour. But then the case becomes the focalpoint of an extended analysis.

Until senior managers

become aware of the

ways they reason

defensively, any change

activity is likely to be just

a fad.




For example, a CEO at a large organizational-development consulting company was preoccu-pied with the problems caused by the intensecompetition among the various business func-tions represented by his four direct reports. Notonly was he tired of having the problemsdumped in his lap, but he was also worriedabout the impact the interfunctional conflictswere having on the organization’s flexibility. Hehad even calculated that the money beingspent to iron out disagreements amounted tohundreds of thousands of dollars every year.And the more fights there were, the more de-fensive people became, which only increasedthe costs to the organization.

In a paragraph or so, the CEO described ameeting he intended to have with his directreports to address the problem. Next, he di-vided the paper in half, and on the right-handside of the page, he wrote a scenario for themeeting—much like the script for a movie orplay—describing what he would say and howhis subordinates would likely respond. On theleft-hand side of the page, he wrote down anythoughts and feelings that he would be likelyto have during the meeting but that hewouldn’t express for fear they would derailthe discussion.

But instead of holding the meeting, the CEOanalyzed this scenario

with

his direct reports.The case became the catalyst for a discussion inwhich the CEO learned several things aboutthe way he acted with his management team.

He discovered that his four direct reportsoften perceived his conversations as counter-productive. In the guise of being “diplomatic,”he would pretend that a consensus about theproblem existed, when in fact none existed.The unintended result: instead of feeling reas-sured, his subordinates felt wary and tried tofigure out “what is he

really

getting at.”The CEO also realized that the way he dealt

with the competitiveness among departmentheads was completely contradictory. On theone hand, he kept urging them to “think of theorganization as a whole.” On the other, he keptcalling for actions—department budget cuts,for example—that placed them directly incompetition with each other.

Finally, the CEO discovered that many ofthe tacit evaluations and attributions he hadlisted turned out to be wrong. Since he hadnever expressed these assumptions, he hadnever found out just how wrong they were.

What’s more, he learned that much of whathe thought he was hiding came through to hissubordinates anyway—but with the addedmessage that the boss was covering up.

The CEO’s colleagues also learned abouttheir own ineffective behavior. They learnedby examining their own behavior as they triedto help the CEO analyze his case. They alsolearned by writing and analyzing cases oftheir own. They began to see that they tootended to bypass and cover up the real issuesand that the CEO was often aware of it butdid not say so. They too made inaccurate attri-butions and evaluations that they did not ex-press. Moreover, the belief that they had tohide important ideas and feelings from theCEO and from each other in order not toupset anyone turned out to be mistaken. Inthe context of the case discussions, the entiresenior management team was quite willing todiscuss what had always been undiscussable.

In effect, the case study exercise legiti-mizes talking about issues that people havenever been able to address before. Such adiscussion can be emotional—even painful.But for managers with the courage to persist,the payoff is great: management teams andentire organizations work more openly andmore effectively and have greater optionsfor behaving flexibly and adapting to partic-ular situations.

When senior managers are trained in newreasoning skills, they can have a big impact onthe performance of the entire organization—even when other employees are still reasoningdefensively. The CEO who led the meetings onthe performance-evaluation procedure wasable to defuse dissatisfaction because he didn’trespond to professionals’ criticisms in kind butinstead gave a clear presentation of relevantdata. Indeed, most participants took the CEO’sbehavior to be a sign that the company reallyacted on the values of participation and em-ployee involvement that it espoused.

Of course, the ideal is for all the membersof an organization to learn how to reason pro-ductively. This has happened at the companywhere the case team meeting took place. Con-sultants and their managers are now able toconfront some of the most difficult issues ofthe consultant-client relationship. To get asense of the difference productive reasoningcan make, imagine how the original conversa-tion between the manager and case team

Learning to reason

productively can be

emotional—even

painful. But the payoff is

great.




might have gone had everyone engaged ineffective reasoning. (The following dialogue isbased on actual sessions I have attended withother case teams at the same company sincethe training has been completed.)

First, the consultants would have demon-strated their commitment to continuous im-provement by being willing to examine theirown role in the difficulties that arose duringthe consulting project. No doubt they wouldhave identified their managers and the cli-ents as part of the problem, but they wouldhave gone on to admit that they had contrib-uted to it as well. More important, theywould have agreed with the manager that asthey explored the various roles of clients,managers, and professionals, they wouldmake sure to test any evaluations or attribu-tions they might make against the data. Eachindividual would have encouraged the oth-ers to question his or her reasoning. Indeed,they would have insisted on it. And in turn,everyone would have understood that act ofquestioning not as a sign of mistrust or an in-vasion of privacy but as a valuable opportu-nity for learning.

The conversation about the manager’s un-willingness to say no might look somethinglike this:

Professional #1:

“One of the biggest prob-lems I had with the way you managed thiscase was that you seemed to be unable to sayno when either the client or your superiormade unfair demands.” [Gives an example.]

Professional #2:

“I have another example toadd. [Describes a second example.] But I’dalso like to say that we never really told youhow we felt about this. Behind your back wewere bad-mouthing you—you know, ‘he’sbeing such a wimp’—but we never came rightout and said it.”

Manager:

“It certainly would have beenhelpful if you had said something. Was thereanything I said or did that gave you the ideathat you had better not raise this with me?”

Professional #3:

“Not really. I think we didn’twant to sound like we were whining.”

Manager:

“Well, I certainly don’t think yousound like you’re whining. But two thoughtscome to mind. If I understand you correctly,you

were

complaining, but the complainingabout me and my inability to say no was cov-ered up. Second, if we had discussed this, Imight have gotten the data I needed to be

able to say no.”Notice that when the second professional

describes how the consultants had coveredup their complaints, the manager doesn’tcriticize her. Rather, he rewards her for beingopen by responding in kind. He focuses onthe ways that he too may have contributedto the cover-up. Reflecting undefensivelyabout his own role in the problem thenmakes it possible for the professionals to talkabout their fears of appearing to be whining.The manager then agrees with the profes-sionals that they shouldn’t become com-plainers. At the same time, he points out thecounterproductive consequences of coveringup their complaints.

Another unresolved issue in the case teammeeting concerned the supposed arrogance ofthe clients. A more productive conversationabout that problem might go like this:

Manager:

“You said that the clients were ar-rogant and uncooperative. What did they sayand do?”

Professional #1:

“One asked me if I had evermet a payroll. Another asked how long I’vebeen out of school.”

Professional #2:

“One even asked me howold I was!”

Professional #3:

“That’s nothing. The worst iswhen they say that all we do is interview peo-ple, write a report based on what they tell us,and then collect our fees.”

Manager:

“The fact that we tend to be soyoung is a real problem for many of our cli-ents. They get very defensive about it. But I’dlike to explore whether there is a way forthem to freely express their views without ourgetting defensive...”

“What troubled me about your original re-sponses was that you assumed you were rightin calling the clients stupid. One thing I’ve no-ticed about consultants—in this company andothers—is that we tend to defend ourselvesby bad-mouthing the client.”

Professional #1:

“Right. After all, if they aregenuinely stupid, then it’s obviously not ourfault that they aren’t getting it!”

Professional #2:

“Of course, that stance is an-tilearning and overprotective. By assumingthat they can’t learn, we absolve ourselvesfrom having to.”

Professional #3:

“And the more we all goalong with the bad-mouthing, the more wereinforce each other’s defensiveness.”

To question someone

else’s reasoning is not a

sign of mistrust but a

valuable opportunity for

learning.




Manager:

“So what’s the alternative? Howcan we encourage our clients to express theirdefensiveness and at the same time construc-tively build on it?”

Professional #1:

“We all know that the realissue isn’t our age; it’s whether or not we areable to add value to the client’s organization.They should judge us by what we produce.And if we aren’t adding value, they shouldget rid of us—no matter how young or old wehappen to be.”

Manager:

“Perhaps that is exactly what weshould tell them.”

In both these examples, the consultants andtheir manager are doing real work. They arelearning about their own group dynamics and

addressing some generic problems in client-consultant relationships. The insights theygain will allow them to act more effectively inthe future—both as individuals and as ateam. They are not just solving problems butdeveloping a far deeper and more texturedunderstanding of their role as members of theorganization. They are laying the groundworkfor continuous improvement that is truly con-tinuous. They are learning how to learn.

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page 13

Further Reading

A R T I C L E S

Managing Professional Intellect: Making the Most of the Best

by James Brian Quinn, Philip Anderson, and Sydney Finkelstein


March–April 1996Product no. 96209

In today’s global economy, a corporation’s success depends largely on its intellectual assets, its “know-how,” “know-why,” and “care-why.” This “professional intellect” typically resides in highly trained and highly motivated individuals who, as a class, respond more pos-itively to a management style that resembles coaching rather than command-and-control. Because intellectual assets increase with use, effective ways of sharing knowledge and pro-viding access to data throughout an organi-zation can increase a company’s competitive edge. Software tools provide the channels for sharing information. Leveraging professional intellect to full advantage, however, requires new incentive systems and organizational designs that support and encourage new, more productive patterns of behavior.

Good Communication That Blocks Learning

by Chris Argyris


July–August 1994Product no. 5386

The now familiar techniques of corporate communication—focus groups, surveys, management-by-walking-around—can block organizational learning even as they help solve certain kinds of problems. Although many of these problems are susceptible to simple, single-loop solutions, problems with complex root causes are not. Double-loop learning asks not only

what

is wrong, but

why

.

Nobody Trusts the Boss Completely—Now What?

by Fernando Bartolomé


March–April 1989Product no. 89203

It’s crucial to spot problems early on, and the best way to find out about them is to have subordinates tell you—which requires a relationship with direct reports based on candor and trust. These two characteristics are not easily won. For example, there are six areas critical to the development of trust: communication, support, respect, fairness, predictability, and competence. Managers can encourage and reinforce these positive patterns in the workplace through double-loop learning: examining their own behavior and making any changes necessary in the way they interact with others.

B O O K

The Knowing–Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action

by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. SuttonHarvard Business School Press1999Product no. 1240

It’s not sufficient just to

know

something needs to be changed; you have to

do

some-thing based on that knowledge for change to occur. The authors delve into the reasons why one company makes that connection and another does not. They go on to formu-late eight guidelines for action that counter obstructive thinking and acting.










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