Overcoming Organizational Defenses: Facilitating Organizational Learning by Chris Argyris

Organizational Defenses and Facilitating Organizational Learning by Chris Argyris has been a widely debated topic in the fields of business, management and organizational behavior for decades. In this bestselling book, Chris Argyris, who is widely recognized as one of the pioneers of organizational behavior theory, examines the ways in which organizations prevent learning and argues for the importance of overcoming organizational defenses to create effective learning systems for organizations.

Argyris starts off the book by introducing two concepts—organizational defenses and learning systems—to explain why organizations tend not to learn from experiences. According to Argyris, organizational defenses are often due to the environment that a firm is operating in, which creates different kinds of pressures and opportunities. This can lead to the formation of structures, policies and practices that do not allow for learning to take place. Argyris then goes on to explain different types of organizational defenses such as rationalizing, control and protection that inhibit learning.

Rationalizing occurs when members of organizations actively try to create reasons as to why a certain action should be taken, while control happens when a decision maker in the organization makes choices that do not align with the organizations’ beliefs and values. Protection is the act of concealing or avoiding the sharing of information in order to prevent learning from occurring. Additionally, Argyris highlights the importance of overhead costs in creating a learning system. He notes that overhead costs can restrict the resources available for learning and development, thus creating an obstacle for firms to progress.

In order to overcome the organizational defenses, Argyris argues that organizations need to understand the importance of organizational learning and develop the requisite structures, policies, and procedures needed to facilitate it. He goes on to discuss the need for organizations to build psychological safety, which is the ability of a person to feel secure in their environment and therefore to express their opinions and ideas without fear of judgment or negative consequences. Argyris also argues for the need to recruit and develop members that are open to challenging the status quo and are willing to embrace change.

To help organizations create a learning system, Argyris suggests utilizing feedback loops, goal setting, and risk taking. Specifically, feedback loops act like a catalyst for organizational learning, as they look to identify key trends and patterns that can then be used to guide decisions. Goal setting is essential for reducing the risk of failure and for ensuring that all team members are aligned on the same goals and objectives. Moreover, risk taking is an important part of learning as it helps to promote innovation and allows organizations to create new solutions to old problems.

Overall, Organizational Defenses and Facilitating Organizational Learning by Chris Argyris is a comprehensive and insightful look at why organizations are prone to defensive behaviors and provides practical strategies for overcoming them. Argyris powerfully outlines the need to create learning systems and provides readers with the tools and strategies necessary to do so. Although the book is written in a complex style, it is full of valuable insight into the relationship between organizational learning and organizational success and thus is a great read for those looking to understand organizational learning.