Argyris Quotes & Sayings

But perhaps most important of all, having too many people on a team makes team dynamics during meetings and other decision-making events almost impossible. That's because a good team has to engage in two types of communication in order to optimize decision making, but only one of these is practical in a large group. According to Harvard's Chris Argyris, those two types of communication are advocacy and inquiry. Basically, advocacy is the statement of ideas and opinions; inquiry is the asking of questions for clarity and understanding. When a group gets too large, people realize they are not going to get the floor back any time soon, so they resort almost exclusively to advocacy. It becomes like Congress (which is not designed to be a team) or the United Nations (ditto). — Patrick Lencioni

Chris Argyris criticized "good communication that blocks learning," arguing that formal communication mechanisms like focus groups and organizational surveys in effect give employees mechanisms for letting management know what they think without taking any responsibility for problems and their role in doing something about them. These mechanisms fail because "they do not get people to reflect on their own work and behavior. They do not encourage individual accountability. — Peter M. Senge

Individual learning is a necessary but insufficient condition for organizational learning. — Chris Argyris

One must treat theory-in-use as both a psychological certainty and an intellectual hypothesis. — Chris Argyris

Most people define learning too narrowly as mere 'problem-solving', so they focus on identifying and correcting errors in the external environment. Solving problems is important. But if learning is to persist, managers and employees must also look inward. The need to reflect critically on their own behaviour, identify the ways they often inadvertently contribute to the organisation's problems, and then change how they act. — Chris Argyris

Smart people don't learn ... because they have too much invested in proving what they know and avoiding being seen as not knowing. — Chris Argyris

In fact, people themselves are responsible for making the status quo so resistant to change. We are trapped by our own behavior. — Chris Argyris

Success in the marketplace increasingly depends on learning. Yet most people don't know how to learn. — Chris Argyris

people get trapped by using patterns of behavior to protect themselves against threats to their self-esteem and confidence and to protect groups, intergroups, and organizations to which they belong against fundamental, disruptive change. — Chris Argyris

Leadership is the day to day communications about the real issues. — Chris Argyris

Managers who are skilled communicators may also be good at covering up real problems. — Chris Argyris