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Teaching Smart PeopleHow to Learnby Chris Argyris

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P R O D U C T N U M B E R 4 3 0 4

Why are your

smartest people often

your slowest learners?

Because they aren’t

familiar with failure.

Which means they don’t

know how to reflect on

their own assumptions.

T H E I D E A

Probl em solving is an example of single-loop learning. You identify an error and apply a particular remedy to correct it. But genuinelearning involves an extra step, in which youreflect on your assumptions and test the validity of your hypotheses. Achieving this double-loop learning is more than a matter of motivation—you have to reflect on the wayyou think.

Failure forces you to reflect on your assump-tions and inferences. Which is why an organiza-tion’s smartest and most successful employeesare often such poor learners: they haven’t hadthe opportunity for introspection that failureaffords. So when they do fail—or merely under-perform—they can be surprisingly defensive.Instead of critically examining their own behav-ior, they cast blame outward—on anyone or anything they can.

Teaching Smart People How to Learn

Pe opl e often profess to be open to critiqueand 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” whileminimizing “losing”

• the belief that negative feelings should besuppressed

• the desire to appear as rational as possible.

Taken together, these values betray a pro-foundly defensive posture: a need to avoidembarrassment, threat, or feelings of vulnera-bility and incompetence. This closed-loop reasoning explains why the mere encourage-ment of open inquiry can be intimidating tosome. And it’s especially relevant to the behav-ior of many of the most highly skilled and best-trained employees. Behind their high aspira-tions are an equally high fear of failure and atendency to be ashamed when they don’t live up to their high standards. Consequently, theybecome brittle and despondent in situations in which they don’t excel immediately.

Fortunately, it is possible for individuals andorganizations to develop more productive pat-terns of behavior. Two suggestions for how tomake this happen:

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1. Apply the same kind of “tough reasoning”you use to conduct strategic analysis.Collect the most objective data you canfind. Make your inferences explicit and testthem constantly. Submit your conclusionsto the toughest tests of all: make sure theyaren’t self-serving or impossible for othersto verify.

2. Senior managers must model the desiredchanges first. When the leadership demon-strates its willingness to examine criticallyits own theories-in-use, changing them asindicated, everyone will find it easier to dothe same.

E X A M P L E :The CEO of an organizational-development firmcreated a case study to address real problemscaused by the intense competition among hisdirect reports. In a paragraph, he described ameeting he intended to have with his subordi-nates. Then he wrote down what he planned tosay, how he thought his subordinates wouldrespond, as well any thoughts or feelings hethought he might have but not express for fear ofderailing the conversation. Instead of actuallyholding the meeting, he analyzed the scenario hehad developed with his direct reports. The resultwas an illuminating conversation in which the CEOand his subordinates were able to circumvent theclosed-loop reasoning that had characterized somany prior discussions.

T H E I D E A A T W O R K

I N B R I E F

Any company that aspires to succeed in thetougher business environment of the 1990s mustfirst resolve a basic dilemma: success in the market-place increasingly depends on learning, yet mostpeople don’t know how to learn. What’s more, thosemembers of the organization that many assume tobe the best at learning are, in fact, not very good at it.I am talking about the well-educated, high-powered,high-commitment professionals who occupy keyleadership positions in the modern corporation.

Most companies not only have tremendous diffi-culty addressing this learning dilemma; they aren’teven aware that it exists. The reason: they misun-derstand what learning is and how to bring it about.

As a result, they tend to make two mistakes in theirefforts to become a learning organization.

First, most people define learning too narrowly asmere “problem solving,” so they focus on identify-ing and correcting errors in the external environ-ment. Solving problems is important. But if learn-

DRAWINGS BY MICHAEL CRAWFORD Copyright © 1991 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. All rights reserved.

Every company faces a learning dilemma: the smartest people

find it the hardest to learn.

Teaching Smart People How to Learn

by Chris Argyris

Chris Argyris is the James B. Conant Professor at theHarvard graduate schools of business and education.His most recent book, Overcoming Organizational De-fenses, was published by Allyn and Bacon in 1990.Among his previous HBR articles are “Double LoopLearning in Organizations” (September-October 1977)and “Skilled Incompetence” (September-October 1986.)

ing is to persist, managers and employees must alsolook inward. They need to reflect critically on theirown behavior, identify the ways they often inadver-tently contribute to the organization’s problems,and then change how they act. In particular, theymust learn how the very way they go about definingand solving problems can be a source of problems inits own right.

I have coined the terms “single loop” and “doubleloop” learning to capture this crucial distinction. Togive a simple analogy: a thermostat that automati-cally turns on the heat whenever the temperature ina room drops below 68 degrees is a good example ofsingle-loop learning. A thermostat that could ask,“Why am I set at 68 degrees?” and then explorewhether or not some other temperature might moreeconomically achieve the goal of heating the roomwould be engaging in double-loop learning.

Highly skilled professionals are frequently verygood at single-loop learning. After all, they havespent much of their lives acquiring academic cre-dentials, mastering one or a number of intellectualdisciplines, and applying those disciplines to solvereal-world problems. But ironically, this very facthelps explain why professionals are often so bad atdouble-loop learning.

Put simply, because many professionals are al-most always successful at what they do, they rarelyexperience failure. And because they have rarelyfailed, they have never learned how to learn fromfailure. So whenever their single-loop learningstrategies go wrong, they become defensive, screenout criticism, and put the “blame” on anyone andeveryone but themselves. In short, their ability tolearn shuts down precisely at the moment theyneed it the most.

The propensity among professionals to behavedefensively helps shed light on the second mistakethat companies make about learning. The commonassumption is that getting people to learn is largelya matter of motivation. When people have the rightattitudes and commitment, learning automaticallyfollows. So companies focus on creating new orga-nizational structures – compensation programs,performance reviews, corporate cultures, and thelike – that are designed to create motivated andcommitted employees.

But effective double-loop learning is not simply afunction of how people feel. It is a reflection of howthey think – that is, the cognitive rules or reasoningthey use to design and implement their actions.Think of these rules as a kind of “master program”stored in the brain, governing all behavior. Defen-sive reasoning can block learning even when the in-dividual commitment to it is high, just as a comput-

er program with hidden bugs can produce results ex-actly the opposite of what its designers had planned.

Companies can learn how to resolve the learningdilemma. What it takes is to make the ways man-agers and employees reason about their behavior afocus of organizational learning and continuous im-provement programs. Teaching people how to rea-son about their behavior in new and more effectiveways breaks down the defenses that block learning.

All of the examples that follow involve a particu-lar kind of professional: fast-track consultants atmajor management consulting companies. But theimplications of my argument go far beyond thisspecific occupational group. The fact is, more andmore jobs – no matter what the title – are taking onthe contours of “knowledge work.” People at alllevels of the organization must combine the mas-tery of some highly specialized technical expertisewith the ability to work effectively in teams, formproductive relationships with clients and cus-tomers, and critically reflect on and then changetheir own organizational practices. And the nutsand bolts of management – whether of high-pow-ered consultants or service representatives, seniormanagers or factory technicians – increasingly con-sists of guiding and integrating the autonomous butinterconnected work of highly skilled people.

How Professionals Avoid LearningFor 15 years, I have been conducting in-depth

studies of management consultants. I decided tostudy consultants for a few simple reasons. First,they are the epitome of the highly educated profes-sionals who play an increasingly central role in allorganizations. Almost all of the consultants I’vestudied have MBAs from the top three or four U.S. business schools. They are also highly com-mitted to their work. For instance, at one company,more than 90% of the consultants responded in asurvey that they were “highly satisfied” with theirjobs and with the company.

I also assumed that such professional consultantswould be good at learning. After all, the essence oftheir job is to teach others how to do things differ-ently. I found, however, that these consultants em-bodied the learning dilemma. The most enthusias-tic about continuous improvement in their ownorganizations, they were also often the biggest ob-stacle to its complete success.

As long as efforts at learning and change focusedon external organizational factors – job redesign,compensation programs, performance reviews, andleadership training – the professionals were enthu-siastic participants. Indeed, creating new systems

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6 HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW May-June 1991

and structures was precisely the kind of challengethat well-educated, highly motivated professionalsthrived on.

And yet the moment the quest for continuousimprovement turned to the professionals’ own per-formance, something went wrong. It wasn’t a mat-ter of bad attitude. The professionals’ commitmentto excellence was genuine, and the vision of thecompany was clear. Nevertheless, continuous im-

provement did not persist. And the longer the con-tinuous improvement efforts continued, the greaterthe likelihood that they would produce ever-dimin-ishing returns.

What happened? The professionals began to feelembarrassed. They were threatened by the prospectof critically examining their own role in the organi-zation. Indeed, because they were so well paid (andgenerally believed that their employers were sup-portive and fair), the idea that their performancemight not be at its best made them feel guilty.

Far from being a catalyst for real change, suchfeelings caused most to react defensively. They pro-jected the blame for any problems away from them-selves and onto what they said were unclear goals,insensitive and unfair leaders, and stupid clients.

Consider this example. At a premier manage-ment consulting company, the manager of a caseteam called a meeting to examine the team’s perfor-mance on a recent consulting project. The clientwas largely satisfied and had given the team rela-tively high marks, but the manager believed theteam had not created the value added that it was ca-pable of and that the consulting company hadpromised. In the spirit of continuous improvement,he felt that the team could do better. Indeed, so didsome of the team members.

The manager knew how difficult it was for peopleto reflect critically on their own work performance,especially in the presence of their manager, so hetook a number of steps to make possible a frank andopen discussion. He invited to the meeting an out-side consultant whom team members knew and

trusted – “just to keep me honest,” he said. He alsoagreed to have the entire meeting tape-recorded.That way, any subsequent confusions or disagree-ments about what went on at the meeting could bechecked against the transcript. Finally, the manageropened the meeting by emphasizing that no subjectwas off limits – including his own behavior.

“I realize that you may believe you cannot con-front me,” the manager said. “But I encourage you

to challenge me. You have a respon-sibility to tell me where you thinkthe leadership made mistakes, justas I have the responsibility to identi-fy any I believe you made. And all ofus must acknowledge our own mis-takes. If we do not have an open dia-logue, we will not learn.”

The professionals took the manag-er up on the first half of his invitationbut quietly ignored the second. Whenasked to pinpoint the key problemsin the experience with the client,

they looked entirely outside themselves. Theclients were uncooperative and arrogant. “They didn’t think we could help them.” The team’s ownmanagers were unavailable and poorly prepared. “Attimes, our managers were not up to speed beforethey walked into the client meetings.” In effect, theprofessionals asserted that they were helpless to actdifferently – not because of any limitations of theirown but because of the limitations of others.

The manager listened carefully to the team mem-bers and tried to respond to their criticisms. Hetalked about the mistakes that he had made duringthe consulting process. For example, one profes-sional objected to the way the manager had run theproject meetings. “I see that the way I asked ques-tions closed down discussions,” responded themanager. “I didn’t mean to do that, but I can seehow you might have believed that I had alreadymade up my mind.” Another team member com-plained that the manager had caved in to pressurefrom his superior to produce the project report fartoo quickly, considering the team’s heavy workload. “I think that it was my responsibility to havesaid no,” admitted the manager. “It was clear thatwe all had an immense amount of work.”

Finally, after some three hours of discussionabout his own behavior, the manager began to askthe team members if there were any errors theymight have made. “After all,” he said, “this clientwas not different from many others. How can we bemore effective in the future?”

The professionals repeated that it was really theclients’ and their own managers’ fault. As one put

HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW May-June 1991 7

Professionals embody thelearning dilemma: they areenthusiastic about continuousimprovement – and often thebiggest obstacle to its success.

it, “They have to be open to change and want tolearn.” The more the manager tried to get the teamto examine its own responsibility for the outcome,the more the professionals bypassed his concerns.The best one team member could suggest was forthe case team to “promise less” – implying thatthere was really no way for the group to improve itsperformance.

The case team members were reacting defensive-ly to protect themselves, even though their manag-er was not acting in ways that an outsider wouldconsider threatening. Even if there were some truthto their charges – the clients may well have been ar-rogant and closed, their own managers distant – theway they presented these claims was guaranteed tostop learning. With few exceptions, the profession-als made attributions about the behavior of theclients and the managers but never publicly testedtheir claims. For instance, they said that the clientsweren’t motivated to learn but never really present-ed any evidence supporting that assertion. Whentheir lack of concrete evidence was pointed out tothem, they simply repeated their criticisms morevehemently.

If the professionals had felt so strongly aboutthese issues, why had they never mentioned them

during the project? According to the professionals,even this was the fault of others. “We didn’t want toalienate the client,” argued one. “We didn’t want to be seen as whining,” said another.

The professionals were using their criticisms ofothers to protect themselves from the potential em-barrassment of having to admit that perhaps theytoo had contributed to the team’s less-than-perfectperformance. What’s more, the fact that they keptrepeating their defensive actions in the face of themanager’s efforts to turn the group’s attention to itsown role shows that this defensiveness had becomea reflexive routine. From the professionals’ perspec-tive, they weren’t resisting; they were focusing onthe “real” causes. Indeed, they were to be respected,if not congratulated, for working as well as they didunder such difficult conditions.

The end result was an unproductive parallel con-versation. Both the manager and the professionalswere candid; they expressed their views forcefully.But they talked past each other, never finding acommon language to describe what had happenedwith the client. The professionals kept insistingthat the fault lay with others. The manager kepttrying, unsuccessfully, to get the professionals tosee how they contributed to the state of affairs they

were criticizing. The dialogue ofthis parallel conversation lookslike this:

Professionals: “The clientshave to be open. They must wantto change.”

Manager: “It’s our task to helpthem see that change is in their interest.”

Professionals: “But the clientsdidn’t agree with our analyses.”

Manager: “If they didn’t thinkour ideas were right, how mightwe have convinced them?”

Professionals: “Maybe we needto have more meetings with theclient.”

Manager: “If we aren’t ade-quately prepared and if the clientsdon’t think we’re credible, howwill more meetings help?”

Professionals: “There should bebetter communication betweencase team members and man-agement.”

Manager: “I agree. But profes-sionals should take the initiativeto educate the manager about theproblems they are experiencing.”

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It’s not enough to talk candidly. Professionals can still find themselves talking past each other.

Professionals: “Our leaders are unavailable anddistant.”

Manager: “How do you expect us to know that ifyou don’t tell us?”

Conversations such as this one dramatically il-lustrate the learning dilemma. The problem withthe professionals’ claims is not that they are wrongbut that they aren’t useful. By constantly turningthe focus away from their own behavior to that ofothers, the professionals bring learning to a grind-ing halt. The manager understands the trap butdoes not know how to get out of it. To learn how todo that requires going deeper into the dynamics ofdefensive reasoning – and into the special causesthat make professionals so prone to it.

Defensive Reasoning and the Doom Loop

What explains the professionals’ defensiveness?Not their attitudes about change or commitment tocontinuous improvement; they really wanted towork more effectively. Rather, the key factor is theway they reasoned about their behavior and that of others.

It is impossible to reason anew in every situation.If we had to think through all the possible responsesevery time someone asked, “How are you?” theworld would pass us by. Therefore, everyone devel-ops a theory of action – a set of rules that individualsuse to design and implement their own behavior aswell as to understand the behavior of others. Usual-ly, these theories of actions becomeso taken for granted that people don’teven realize they are using them.

One of the paradoxes of human be-havior, however, is that the masterprogram people actually use is rarelythe one they think they use. Askpeople in an interview or question-naire to articulate the rules they useto govern their actions, and they willgive you what I call their “espoused”theory of action. But observe these same people’sbehavior, and you will quickly see that this es-poused theory has very little to do with how theyactually behave. For example, the professionals onthe case team said they believed in continuous im-provement, and yet they consistently acted in waysthat made improvement impossible.

When you observe people’s behavior and try tocome up with rules that would make sense of it,you discover a very different theory of action – whatI call the individual’s “theory-in-use.” Put simply,people consistently act inconsistently, unaware of

the contradiction between their espoused theoryand their theory-in-use, between the way theythink they are acting and the way they really act.

What’s more, most theories-in-use rest on thesame set of governing values. There seems to be auniversal human tendency to design one’s actionsconsistently according to four basic values:

1. To remain in unilateral control; 2. To maximize “winning” and minimize “losing”; 3. To suppress negative feelings; and 4. To be as “rational” as possible – by which peo-

ple mean defining clear objectives and evaluatingtheir behavior in terms of whether or not they haveachieved them.

The purpose of all these values is to avoid embar-rassment or threat, feeling vulnerable or incompe-tent. In this respect, the master program that mostpeople use is profoundly defensive. Defensive rea-soning encourages individuals to keep private thepremises, inferences, and conclusions that shapetheir behavior and to avoid testing them in a trulyindependent, objective fashion.

Because the attributions that go into defensivereasoning are never really tested, it is a closed loop,remarkably impervious to conflicting points ofview. The inevitable response to the observationthat somebody is reasoning defensively is yet moredefensive reasoning. With the case team, for exam-ple, whenever anyone pointed out the professionals’defensive behavior to them, their initial reactionwas to look for the cause in somebody else – clientswho were so sensitive that they would have been

alienated if the consultants had criticized them or amanager so weak that he couldn’t have taken it hadthe consultants raised their concerns with him. Inother words, the case team members once again de-nied their own responsibility by externalizing theproblem and putting it on someone else.

In such situations, the simple act of encouragingmore open inquiry is often attacked by others as“intimidating.” Those who do the attacking dealwith their feelings about possibly being wrong byblaming the more open individual for arousingthese feelings and upsetting them.

HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW May-June 1991 9

The very success of professionals at education

helps explain the problems theyhave with learning.

Needless to say, such a master program in-evitably short-circuits learning. And for a numberof reasons unique to their psychology, well-educat-ed professionals are especially susceptible to this.

Nearly all the consultants I have studied havestellar academic records. Ironically, their very suc-cess at education helps explain the problems theyhave with learning. Before they enter the world ofwork, their lives are primarily full of successes, sothey have rarely experienced the embarrassmentand sense of threat that comes with failure. As a re-sult, their defensive reasoning has rarely been acti-vated. People who rarely experience failure, howev-er, end up not knowing how to deal with iteffectively. And this serves to reinforce the normalhuman tendency to reason defensively.

In a survey of several hundred young consultantsat the organizations I have been studying, theseprofessionals describe themselves as driven inter-nally by an unrealistically high ideal of perfor-mance: “Pressure on the job is self-imposed.” “Imust not only do a good job; I must also be thebest.” “People around here are very bright and hardworking; they are highly motivated to do anoutstanding job.” “Most of us want not only to suc-ceed but also to do so at maximum speed.”

These consultants are always comparing them-selves with the best around them and constantlytrying to better their own performance. And yetthey do not appreciate being required to competeopenly with each other. They feel it is somehow in-humane. They prefer to be the in-dividual contributor – whatmight be termed a “productiveloner.”

Behind this high aspiration forsuccess is an equally high fear of fail-ure and a propensity to feel shameand guilt when they do fail to meettheir high standards. “You mustavoid mistakes,” said one. “Ihate making them. Many of us fear failure, whether we admit it or not.”

To the extent that these con-sultants have experienced suc-cess in their lives, they have nothad to be concerned about fail-ure and the attendant feelingsof shame and guilt. But to exact-ly the same extent, they alsohave never developed the tolerance forfeelings of failure or the skills to deal withthese feelings. This in turn has ledthem not only to fear failure but

also to fear the fear of failure itself. For they knowthat they will not cope with it superlatively – theirusual level of aspiration.

The consultants use two intriguing metaphors todescribe this phenomenon. They talk about the“doom loop” and “doom zoom.” Often, consul-tants will perform well on the case team, but be-cause they don’t do the jobs perfectly or receive ac-colades from their managers, they go into a doomloop of despair. And they don’t ease into the doomloop, they zoom into it.

As a result, many professionals have extremely“brittle” personalities. When suddenly faced with asituation they cannot immediately handle, theytend to fall apart. They cover up their distress infront of the client. They talk about it constantlywith their fellow case team members. Interestingly,these conversations commonly take the form ofbad-mouthing clients.

Such brittleness leads to an inappropriately highsense of despondency or even despair when peopledon’t achieve the high levels of performance theyaspire to. Such despondency is rarely psychological-ly devastating, but when combined with defensivereasoning, it can result in a formidable predisposi-tion against learning.

There is no better example of how this brittlenesscan disrupt an organization than performance eval-uations. Because it represents the one momentwhen a professional must measure his or her own

behavior against some formalstandard, a performance evalua-tion is almost tailor-made to pusha professional into the doom loop.Indeed, a poor evaluation can re-verberate far beyond the particu-lar individual involved to sparkdefensive reasoning throughoutan entire organization.

At one consulting company,management established a newperformance-evaluation processthat was designed to make evalu-ations both more objective andmore useful to those being evalu-ated. The consultants participat-ed in the design of the new sys-tem and in general wereenthusiastic because it corre-sponded to their espoused valuesof objectivity and fairness. A brieftwo years into the new process,however, it had become the object

of dissatisfaction. The catalyst forthis about-face was the first unsat-

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10 HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW May-June 1991

When professionals don’t do their jobs perfectly, they zoom into a “doom loop.”

isfactory rating. Senior managers had identified six consultants

whose performance they considered below stan-dard. In keeping with the new evaluation process,they did all they could to communicate their con-cerns to the six and to help them improve. Man-agers met with each individual separately for aslong and as often as the professional requested toexplain the reasons behind the rating and to discusswhat needed to be done to improve – but to no avail.Performance continued at the same low level and,eventually, the six were let go.

When word of the dismissal spread through thecompany, people responded with confusion andanxiety. After about a dozen consul-tants angrily complained to manage-ment, the CEO held two lengthymeetings where employees could airtheir concerns.

At the meetings, the professionalsmade a variety of claims. Some saidthe performance-evaluation processwas unfair because judgments weresubjective and biased and the criteria for minimumperformance unclear. Others suspected that the re-al cause for the dismissals was economic and thatthe performance-evaluation procedure was just afig leaf to hide the fact that the company was introuble. Still others argued that the evaluation pro-cess was antilearning. If the company were truly alearning organization, as it claimed, then peopleperforming below the minimum standard shouldbe taught how to reach it. As one professional putit: “We were told that the company did not have anup-or-out policy. Up-or-out is inconsistent withlearning. You misled us.”

The CEO tried to explain the logic behind man-agement’s decision by grounding it in the facts ofthe case and by asking the professionals for any evi-dence that might contradict these facts.

Is there subjectivity and bias in the evaluationprocess? Yes, responded the CEO, but “we strivehard to reduce them. We are constantly trying toimprove the process. If you have any ideas, pleasetell us. If you know of someone treated unfairly,please bring it up. If any of you feel that you havebeen treated unfairly, let’s discuss it now or, if youwish, privately.”

Is the level of minimum competence too vague?“We are working to define minimum competencemore clearly,” he answered. “In the case of the six,however, their performance was so poor that it was-n’t difficult to reach a decision.” Most of the six hadreceived timely feedback about their problems.And in the two cases where people had not, the rea-

son was that they had never taken the responsibili-ty to seek out evaluations – and, indeed, had active-ly avoided them. “If you have any data to the con-trary,” the CEO added, “let’s talk about it.”

Were the six asked to leave for economic reasons?No, said the CEO. “We have more work than wecan do, and letting professionals go is extremelycostly for us. Do any of you have any information tothe contrary?”

As to the company being antilearning, in fact, theentire evaluation process was designed to encour-age learning. When a professional is performing be-low the minimum level, the CEO explained, “wejointly design remedial experiences with the indi-

vidual. Then we look for signs of improvement. Inthese cases, either the professionals were reluctantto take on such assignments or they repeatedlyfailed when they did. Again, if you have informa-tion or evidence to the contrary, I’d like to hearabout it.”

The CEO concluded: “It’s regrettable, but some-times we make mistakes and hire the wrong peo-ple. If individuals don’t produce and repeatedlyprove themselves unable to improve, we don’tknow what else to do except dismiss them. It’s justnot fair to keep poorly performing individuals inthe company. They earn an unfair share of the fi-nancial rewards.”

Instead of responding with data of their own, theprofessionals simply repeated their accusations butin ways that consistently contradicted their claims.They said that a genuinely fair evaluation processwould contain clear and documentable data aboutperformance – but they were unable to providefirsthand examples of the unfairness that they im-plied colored the evaluation of the six dismissedemployees. They argued that people shouldn’t bejudged by inferences unconnected to their actualperformance – but they judged management in precisely this way. They insisted that managementdefine clear, objective, and unambiguous perfor-mance standards – but they argued that any hu-mane system would take into account that the per-formance of a professional cannot be preciselymeasured. Finally, they presented themselves aschampions of learning – but they never proposed

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Performance evaluation is tailor-made to push

professionals into the doom loop.

any criteria for assessing whether an individualmight be unable to learn.

In short, the professionals seemed to hold man-agement to a different level of performance thanthey held themselves. In their conversation at themeetings, they used many of the features of ineffec-tive evaluation that they condemned – the absenceof concrete data, for example, and the dependenceon a circular logic of “heads we win,tails you lose.” It is as if they weresaying, “Here are the features of afair performance-evaluation system.You should abide by them. But wedon’t have to when we are evaluatingyou.”

Indeed, if we were to explain theprofessionals’ behavior by articulat-ing rules that would have to be intheir heads in order for them to actthe way they did, the rules would look somethinglike this:

1. When criticizing the company, state your criti-cism in ways that you believe are valid – but also inways that prevent others from deciding for them-selves whether your claim to validity is correct.

2. When asked to illustrate your criticisms, don’tinclude any data that others could use to decide forthemselves whether the illustrations are valid.

3. State your conclusions in ways that disguisetheir logical implications. If others point out thoseimplications to you, deny them.

Of course, when such rules were described to theprofessionals, they found them abhorrent. It was in-conceivable that these rules might explain their ac-tions. And yet in defending themselves against thisobservation, they almost always inadvertently con-firmed the rules.

Learning How to Reason ProductivelyIf defensive reasoning is as widespread as I be-

lieve, then focusing on an individual’s attitudes orcommitment is never enough to produce realchange. And as the previous example illustrates,neither is creating new organizational structures orsystems. The problem is that even when people aregenuinely committed to improving their perfor-mance and management has changed its structuresin order to encourage the “right” kind of behavior,people still remain locked in defensive reasoning.Either they remain unaware of this fact, or if theydo become aware of it, they blame others.

There is, however, reason to believe that organiza-tions can break out of this vicious circle. Despite thestrength of defensive reasoning, people genuinely

strive to produce what they intend. They value act-ing competently. Their self-esteem is intimatelytied up with behaving consistently and performingeffectively. Companies can use these universal hu-man tendencies to teach people how to reason in anew way – in effect, to change the master programsin their heads and thus reshape their behavior.

People can be taught how to recognize the reason-

ing they use when they design and implement theiractions. They can begin to identify the inconsisten-cies between their espoused and actual theories ofaction. They can face up to the fact that they un-consciously design and implement actions thatthey do not intend. Finally, people can learn how toidentify what individuals and groups do to createorganizational defenses and how these defensescontribute to an organization’s problems.

Once companies embark on this learning pro-cess, they will discover that the kind of reasoningnecessary to reduce and overcome organizationaldefenses is the same kind of “tough reasoning” thatunderlies the effective use of ideas in strategy, fi-nance, marketing, manufacturing, and other man-agement disciplines. Any sophisticated strategicanalysis, for example, depends on collecting validdata, analyzing it carefully, and constantly testingthe inferences drawn from the data. The toughesttests are reserved for the conclusions. Good strate-gists make sure that their conclusions can with-stand all kinds of critical questioning.

So too with productive reasoning about humanbehavior. The standard of analysis is just as high.Human resource programs no longer need to bebased on “soft” reasoning but should be as analyti-cal and as data-driven as any other managementdiscipline.

Of course, that is not the kind of reasoning theconsultants used when they encountered problemsthat were embarrassing or threatening. The datathey collected was hardly objective. The inferencesthey made rarely became explicit. The conclusionsthey reached were largely self-serving, impossiblefor others to test, and as a result, “self-sealing,” im-pervious to change.

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12 HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW May-June 1991

Until senior managers becomeaware of the ways they reason

defensively, any change activityis likely to be just a fad.

How can an organization begin to turn this situa-tion around, to teach its members how to reasonproductively? The first step is for managers at thetop to examine critically and change their own the-ories-in-use. Until senior managers become awareof how they reason defensively and the counterpro-ductive consequences that result, there will be lit-tle real progress. Any change activity is likely to bejust a fad.

Change has to start at the top because otherwisedefensive senior managers are likely to disown anytransformation in reasoning patterns coming frombelow. If professionals or middle managers begin tochange the way they reason and act, such changesare likely to appear strange – if not actually danger-ous – to those at the top. The result is an unstablesituation where senior managers still believe that itis a sign of caring and sensitivity to bypass and cov-er up difficult issues, while their subordinates seethe very same actions as defensive.

The key to any educational experience designedto teach senior managers how to reason produc-tively is to connect the program to real businessproblems. The best demonstration of the useful-ness of productive reasoning is for busy managersto see how it can make a direct difference in theirown performance and in that of the organization.This will not happen overnight.Managers need plenty of opportuni-ty to practice the new skills. Butonce they grasp the powerful impactthat productive reasoning can haveon actual performance, they willhave a strong incentive to reasonproductively not just in a trainingsession but in all their work rela-tionships.

One simple approach I have used to get this pro-cess started is to have participants produce a kind ofrudimentary case study. The subject is a real busi-ness problem that the manager either wants to dealwith or has tried unsuccessfully to address in thepast. Writing the actual case usually takes less thanan hour. But then the case becomes the focal pointof an extended analysis.

For example, a CEO at a large organizational-development consulting company was preoccupiedwith the problems caused by the intense competi-tion among the various business functions repre-sented by his four direct reports. Not only was hetired of having the problems dumped in his lap, buthe was also worried about the impact the interfunc-tional conflicts were having on the organization’sflexibility. He had even calculated that the moneybeing spent to iron out disagreements amounted to

hundreds of thousands of dollars every year. Andthe more fights there were, the more defensive peo-ple became, which only increased the costs to theorganization.

In a paragraph or so, the CEO described a meetinghe intended to have with his direct reports to ad-dress the problem. Next, he divided the paper inhalf, and on the right-hand side of the page, he wrotea scenario for the meeting – much like the script fora movie or play – describing what he would say andhow his subordinates would likely respond. On theleft-hand side of the page, he wrote down anythoughts and feelings that he would be likely tohave during the meeting but that he wouldn’t ex-press for fear they would derail the discussion.

But instead of holding the meeting, the CEO ana-lyzed this scenario with his direct reports. The casebecame the catalyst for a discussion in which theCEO learned several things about the way he actedwith his management team.

He discovered that his four direct reports oftenperceived his conversations as counterproductive.In the guise of being “diplomatic,” he would pretendthat a consensus about the problem existed, when infact none existed. The unintended result: instead offeeling reassured, his subordinates felt wary andtried to figure out “what is he really getting at.”

The CEO also realized that the way he dealt withthe competitiveness among department heads wascompletely contradictory. On the one hand, he kepturging them to “think of the organization as awhole.” On the other, he kept calling for actions –department budget cuts, for example – that placedthem directly in competition with each other.

Finally, the CEO discovered that many of the tac-it evaluations and attributions he had listed turnedout to be wrong. Since he had never expressed theseassumptions, he had never found out just howwrong they were. What’s more, he learned thatmuch of what he thought he was hiding camethrough to his subordinates anyway – but with theadded message that the boss was covering up.

The CEO’s colleagues also learned about theirown ineffective behavior. They learned by examin-ing their own behavior as they tried to help theCEO analyze his case. They also learned by writing

HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW May-June 1991 13

Learning to reason productivelycan be emotional – even painful.

But the payoff is great.

and analyzing cases of their own. They began to seethat they too tended to bypass and cover up the realissues and that the CEO was often aware of it butdid not say so. They too made inaccurate attribu-tions and evaluations that they did not express.

Moreover, the belief that they had to hide impor-tant ideas and feelings from the CEO and from eachother in order not to upset anyone turned out to bemistaken. In the context of the case discussions,the entire senior management team was quite will-ing to discuss what had always been undiscussable.

In effect, the case study exercise legitimizes talk-ing about issues that people have never been able toaddress before. Such a discussion can be emotional– even painful. But for managers with the courage

to persist, the payoff is great: management teamsand entire organizations work more openly andmore effectively and have greater options for behav-ing flexibly and adapting to particular situations.

When senior managers are trained in new reason-ing skills, they can have a big impacton the performance of the entire or-ganization – even when other em-ployees are still reasoning defensive-ly. The CEO who led the meetingson the performance-evaluation pro-cedure was able to defuse dissatisfac-tion because he didn’t respond toprofessionals’ criticisms in kind butinstead gave a clear presentation ofrelevant data. Indeed, most partici-

pants took the CEO’s behavior to be a sign that thecompany really acted on the values of participationand employee involvement that it espoused.

Of course, the ideal is for all the members of anorganization to learn how to reason productively.This has happened at the company where the caseteam meeting took place. Consultants and theirmanagers are now able to confront some of themost difficult issues of the consultant-client rela-tionship. To get a sense of the difference productive

reasoning can make, imagine howthe original conversation betweenthe manager and case team mighthave gone had everyone engagedin effective reasoning. (The fol-lowing dialogue is based on actualsessions I have attended with oth-er case teams at the same compa-ny since the training has beencompleted.)

First, the consultants wouldhave demonstrated their commit-ment to continuous improvementby being willing to examine theirown role in the difficulties thatarose during the consultingproject. No doubt they wouldhave identified their managersand the clients as part of the prob-lem, but they would have gone onto admit that they had contribut-ed to it as well. More important,they would have agreed with themanager that as they explored thevarious roles of clients, managers,and professionals, they wouldmake sure to test any evaluationsor attributions they might makeagainst the data. Each individual

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14 HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW May-June 1991

The professional who reasons productively casts a critical eye on her own role in a company’s problem.

To question someone else’sreasoning is not a sign ofmistrust but a valuableopportunity for learning.

would have encouraged the others to question hisor her reasoning. Indeed, they would have insistedon it. And in turn, everyone would have understoodthat act of questioning not as a sign of mistrust oran invasion of privacy but as a valuable opportunityfor learning.

The conversation about the manager’s unwilling-ness to say no might look something like this:

Professional #1: “One of the biggest problems Ihad with the way you managed this case was thatyou seemed to be unable to say no when either theclient or your superior made unfair demands.”[Gives an example.]

Professional #2: “I have another example to add.[Describes a second example.] But I’d also like tosay that we never really told you how we felt aboutthis. Behind your back we were bad-mouthing you –you know, ‘he’s being such a wimp’ – but we nevercame right out and said it.”

Manager: “It certainly would have been helpful ifyou had said something. Was there anything I saidor did that gave you the idea that you had better notraise 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 thoughts cometo mind. If I understand you correctly, you werecomplaining, but the complaining about me andmy inability to say no was covered up. Second, if wehad discussed this, I might have gotten the data Ineeded to be able to say no.”

Notice that when the second professional de-scribes how the consultants had covered up theircomplaints, the manager doesn’t criticize her.Rather, he rewards her for being open by respondingin kind. He focuses on the ways that he too mayhave contributed to the cover-up. Reflecting unde-fensively about his own role in the problem thenmakes it possible for the professionals to talk abouttheir fears of appearing to be whining. The managerthen agrees with the professionals that they shouldn’t become complainers. At the same time,he points out the counterproductive consequencesof covering up their complaints.

Another unresolved issue in the case team meet-ing concerned the supposed arrogance of theclients. A more productive conversation about thatproblem might go like this:

Manager: “You said that the clients were arro-gant and uncooperative. What did they say and do?”

Professional #1: “One asked me if I had ever meta payroll. Another asked how long I’ve been out ofschool.”

Professional #2: “One even asked me how old I was!”

Professional #3: “That’s nothing. The worst iswhen they say that all we do is interview people,write a report based on what they tell us, and thencollect our fees.”

Manager: “The fact that we tend to be so young isa real problem for many of our clients. They getvery defensive about it. But I’d like to explorewhether there is a way for them to freely expresstheir views without our getting defensive...”

“What troubled me about your original responseswas that you assumed you were right in calling theclients stupid. One thing I’ve noticed about consul-tants – in this company and others – is that we tendto defend ourselves by bad-mouthing the client.”

Professional #1: “Right. After all, if they are gen-uinely stupid, then it’s obviously not our fault thatthey aren’t getting it!”

Professional #2: “Of course, that stance is anti-learning and overprotective. By assuming that theycan’t learn, we absolve ourselves from having to.”

Professional #3: “And the more we all go alongwith the bad-mouthing, the more we reinforce eachother’s defensiveness.”

Manager: “So what’s the alternative? How can weencourage our clients to express their defensivenessand at the same time constructively build on it?”

Professional #1: “We all know that the real issueisn’t our age; it’s whether or not we are able to addvalue to the client’s organization. They shouldjudge us by what we produce. And if we aren’tadding value, they should get rid of us – no matterhow young or old we happen to be.”

Manager: “Perhaps that is exactly what we shouldtell them.”

In both these examples, the consultants and theirmanager are doing real work. They are learningabout their own group dynamics and addressingsome generic problems in client-consultant rela-tionships. The insights they gain will allow them toact more effectively in the future – both as individ-uals and as a team. They are not just solving prob-lems but developing a far deeper and more texturedunderstanding of their role as members of the orga-nization. They are laying the groundwork for con-tinuous improvement that is truly continuous.They are learning how to learn.Product no. 4304

HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW May-June 1991 15

ARTICLES

“Managing Professional Intellect: Making the Most of the Best” by James Brian Quinn,Philip Anderson, and Sydney Finkelstein(Harvard Business Review, March–April 1996,Product no. 96209)In today’s global economy, a corporation’ssuccess depends largely on its intellectualassets, its “know-how,” “know-why,” and “care-why.” This “professional intellect” typicallyresides in highly trained and highly motivatedindividuals who, as a class, respond more pos-itively to a management style that resemblescoaching rather than command-and-control.Because intellectual assets increase with use,effective ways of sharing knowledge and pro-viding access to data throughout an organiza-tion can increase a company’s competitiveedge. Software tools provide the channels forsharing information. Leveraging professionalintellect to full advantage, however, requiresnew incentive systems and organizationaldesigns that support and encourage new,more productive patterns of behavior.

“Good Communication That Blocks Learning” by Chris Argyris (Harvard Business Review, July–August 1994,Product no. 5386)The now familiar techniques of corporatecommunication—focus groups, surveys, management-by-walking-around—can blockorganizational learning even as they helpsolve certain kinds of problems. Althoughmany of these problems are susceptible tosimple, single-loop solutions, problems withcomplex root causes are not. Double-looplearning asks not only what is wrong, but why.

“Nobody Trusts the Boss Completely—Now What?” by Fernando Bartolomé (Harvard Business Review, March–April 1989,Product no. 89203)It’s crucial to spot problems early on, and thebest way to find out about them is to havesubordinates tell you—which requires a rela-tionship with direct reports based on candorand trust. These two characteristics are noteasily won. For example, there are six areascritical to the development of trust: commu-nication, support, respect, fairness, pre-dictability, and competence. Managers canencourage and reinforce these positive pat-terns in the workplace through double-looplearning: examining their own behavior andmaking any changes necessary in the waythey interact with others.

BOOK

The Knowing–Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Actionby Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton (Harvard Business School Press, 1999,Product no. 1240)It’s not sufficient just to know somethingneeds to be changed; you have to do some-thing based on that knowledge for change tooccur. The authors delve into the reasons whyone company makes that connection andanother does not. They go on to formulateeight guidelines for action that counterobstructive thinking and acting.

Teaching Smart People How to Learn E X P L O R I N G F U R T H E R . . .

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