Argyris C. Overcoming Organisational Defences: Facilitating Organisational Learning, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Organizāciju aizsardzības mehānismi

Argyris C. Overcoming Organisational Defences: Facilitating Organisational Learning, Prentice-Hall, Inc., ‘I did not know’ Error causes ‘I have to correct it’ causes First order error Skilled incompetence Error causes ‘It is necessary for survival’ causes Second order error

Argyris C. Overcoming Organisational Defences: Facilitating Organisational Learning, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Activities failure success Framing of the success Criteria for framing description of the success seeing success perceiving failure

Argyris C. Overcoming Organisational Defences: Facilitating Organisational Learning, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Activities success Criteria for framing description of the success failure ? ? Framing of the success ?

Argyris C. Overcoming Organisational Defences: Facilitating Organisational Learning, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Activities success Criteria for framing description of the situation failure Framing of the success

Argyris C. Overcoming Organisational Defences: Facilitating Organisational Learning, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Logic of defensive routines Craft messages that contain inconsistencies. Act as if the messages are not inconsistent. Make ambiguity and inconsistency in the messages undiscussable. Make the undiscussability of the undiscussable also undiscussable.

Argyris C. Overcoming Organisational Defences: Facilitating Organisational Learning, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Decision (on the basis of inconsistent information) Covering up of the error Covering up of the covering up of the error 1)violation of managerial stewardship 2)inconsistent information (error) 1)prevention of threat from error, 2)threat from covering up the error, 3)inconsistent information 1)prevention of the threat from covering up the error, 2)inconsistent information Mechanism of organisational defenses Threat

Argyris C. Overcoming Organisational Defences: Facilitating Organisational Learning, Prentice-Hall, Inc., New system with defensive routines New system without defensive routines Faster death of an application organisation Temporary slow down in the application organisation Threat to loose a market for application organisation Potential cause for defensive routines in the development organisation Delay in stating the requirements because of defensive routines in the application organisation Threat not to do a project Potential cause for defensive routines in the application organisation RE

Argyris C. Overcoming Organisational Defences: Facilitating Organisational Learning, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Model 1 (behaviour causing skilled incompetence) To be in unilateral control To win Not to upset people Face saving face sawingwhite liescover up white lies

Argyris C. Overcoming Organisational Defences: Facilitating Organisational Learning, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Seven world wide management errors 1. Actions intended to increase understanding and trust often produce misunderstanding and mistrust 2. Blaming others and the system for poor decisions 3. Organisational inertia: the tried and proven ways of doing things dominate organisational life 4. Upward communication for difficult issues are often lacking 5. Budget games 6. People do not behave reasonably, even when it is in their interest 7. The management teem is often the myth

Argyris C. Overcoming Organisational Defences: Facilitating Organisational Learning, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Budget games (1) Foot in the door. Sell a new program modestly. Conceal its real magnitude Hidden ball. Conceal a politically unattractive program within an attractive one Divide and conquer. Seek approval of a budget request from more than one supervisor Distraction. Base a specific request on the premise that an overall program has been approved when this is not in fact the case It’s free. Argue that someone else will pay for the project so the organisation might as well approve it. Razzle-dazzle. Support the request with voluminous data, but arranged in such a way that their significance is not clear

Argyris C. Overcoming Organisational Defences: Facilitating Organisational Learning, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Budget games (2) Delayed back. submit the date late, arguing that the budged guidelines required so much detailed calculation, that the job could not be done on time Our program is priceless. It is difficult to argue against defense or human life It can’t be measured. The real benefit is subjective Tomorrow and tomorrow. If there is no results today, promise some in the future Stretching things. The real skill is not simply to promise something that is difficult to prove; promise something that is impossible to disprove Both ends against the middle. Play competing committees against each other

Argyris C. Overcoming Organisational Defences: Facilitating Organisational Learning, Prentice-Hall, Inc., People do not behave reasonably when they are faced with facts that are upsetting. Some of the most common defenses people use, when in difficulty, are the following: There is nothing wrong with us that the long production run wouldn’t cure (rejection) Tomorrow we’ll get organised and plan (procrastination) Death in the drawer (indecision) Paralysis by analysis (lack of implementation follow- up) The more paint we sell, the more money we lose (strategic ineffectiveness) What the boss doesn’t know won’t hurt him (sabotage) Let’s get back to real work (regression)

Argyris C. Overcoming Organisational Defences: Facilitating Organisational Learning, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Informed choice Valid information Responsibility to monitor how well the choice is implemented Seek to produce stimulates

Argyris C. Overcoming Organisational Defences: Facilitating Organisational Learning, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Inconsistent information Misunderstan- dings Blaming others Organisational inertia Budged games Lack of upward communication of difficult issues Unreaso- nable behaviour Manage- ment team - a myth Undis- cussible topics Consistency and completeness checking of information Analysis of knowledge distribution in organisations Analysis of history of organisational processes Analysis of vertical communication lines in organisations