because many professionals are almost always successful at what they do, they rarely experience failure. And because they have rarely failed, they have never learned how to learn from failure. So whenever their single-loop learning strategies go wrong, they become defensive, screen out criticism, and put the ‘‘blame’’ on anyone and everyone but themselves. In short, their ability to learn shuts down precisely at the mo-
ment they need it the most.
The propensity among professionals to behave defensively helps shed light on the second mistake that companies make about learning. The common assumption is that getting people to learn is largely a matter of motivation. When people have the right attitudes and commitment, learning automatically follows. So companies focus on creating new organizational structures—compensation programs, performance reviews, corporate cultures, and the like—that are designed to create motivated and committed employees.
the moment the quest for continuous improvement turned to the professionals’ own performance, something went wrong. It wasn’t a matter of bad attitude. The professionals’ commitment to excellence was genuine, and the vision of the company was clear. Nevertheless, continuous improvement did not persist. And the longer the continuous improvement efforts continued, the greater the likelihood that they would produce
ever-diminishing returns.
But they talked past each other, never finding a common language
The problem with the professionals’ claims is not that they are wrong but that they aren’t useful.
By constantly turning the focus away from their own behavior to that of others, the professionals bring learning to a grinding halt.
people consistently act inconsistently, unaware of the contradiction between their espoused theory and their theory-in-use, between the way they think they are acting and the way they really act.
There seems to be a universal human tendency to design one’s actions consistently according to four basic values:
To remain in unilateral control;
To maximize ‘‘winning’’ and minimize ‘‘losing’’;
To suppress negative feelings; and
To be as ‘‘rational’’ as possible —by which people mean de ning clear objectives and evaluating their behavior in terms of whether or not they have achieved them.
The purpose of all these values is to avoid embarrassment or threat, feeling vulnerable or incompetent. In this respect, the master program that most people use is profoundly defensive.
Nearly all the consultants I have studied have stellar academic records. Ironically, their very success at education helps explain the problems they have with learning. Before they enter the world of work, their lives are primarily full of successes, so they have rarely experienced the embarrassment and sense of threat that comes with failure. As a result, their defensive reasoning has rarely been activated. People who rarely experience failure, however, end up not knowing how to deal with it effectively. And this serves to reinforce
the normal human tendency to reason defensively.
‘‘Here are the features of a fair performance-evaluation system. You should abide by them. But we don’t have to when we are evaluating you.’’
The problem is that even when people are genuinely committed to improving their performance and management has changed its structures in order to encourage the ‘‘right’’ kind of behavior, people still remain locked in defensive reasoning. Either they remain unaware of this fact, or if they do become aware of it, they blame others. There is, however, reason to believe that organizations can break out of this vicious
circle. Despite the strength of defensive reasoning, people genuinely strive to produce what they intend. They value acting competently. Their self-esteem is intimately tied up with behaving consistently and performing effectively. Companies can use these universal human tendencies to teach people how to reason in a new way—in effect, to change the master programs in their heads and thus reshape their behavior.
Until senior managers become aware of how they reason defensively and the counterproductive consequences that result, there will be little real progress. Any change activity is likely to be just a fad.
