Chris Argyris, the late leadership researcher and professor at Harvard University, published some time ago an essay titled Teaching Smart People How to Learn. In this essay, he analyzed why highly intelligent, self-motivated, and extremely goal-oriented people often struggle with their own performance reviews.
Argyris’s insights are the result of many years of research among business consultants at the most successful firms in New York. He argues that, despite his research subjects having come from the largest business schools in the United States, many failed to learn from their mistakes. This happened mainly because of “defensive reasoning,” which arises from a general fear of feeling vulnerable or being seen as incompetent. The author found that a large number of highly intelligent people are excellent at solving problems objectively by identifying the problem and executing decisions. This type of learning is the result of many years of academic study based on strategic principles.
Argyris maintains that this approach forms an “espoused theory” of action that is often inconsistent with what he himself calls a “theory-in-use.” Defining the espoused theory, the author reports that everyone develops a theory of action. The “espoused” theory of action is a cluster of ideals that individuals use to define and implement their own behaviors, and also to understand the behavior of others. Generally, these theories of action become so taken for granted that people do not realize they are using them. Yet the true “theory-in-use” contradicts the ideals assumed in the espoused theory. People “consistently act inconsistently,” writes the author, “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.”
This finding is extremely important for a few reasons. First, it identifies a generalized propensity toward idealizing certain honorable behaviors. This leads us to act according to an unconscious expectation rather than present reality. Second, it reveals that even the most intelligent and objective people often do not realize they are unconsciously acting in contradictory ways. Third, it identifies that fixation on an espoused theory arises from the expectations and ideals of an environment, which prevents people from learning new ways of acting when they face unfamiliar challenges. In this scenario, the act of highlighting the contradiction between the different theories of action usually leads to defensive reasoning, which causes people to become hypercritical, averse, and accusatory, blocking the learning process that leads to effective change.
As a pastor and leader, Chris Argyris’s finding leads me to a deep self-reflection. I recently faced a situation of defensive reasoning when trying to offer a constructive evaluation of a sermon preached by a colleague at the church. A conversation that was meant to be constructive became defensive and argumentative. In the end, this colleague retorted, “Not everyone here is a theologian.” What I realized at that moment was that the evaluation I was trying to offer had no precedent at all in our church’s leadership culture. Because there was no precedent, my evaluation was interpreted as a summative verdict, as in, “This sermon was not good; you need to improve.” I also realized that I had not submitted myself to the kind of evaluation I was trying to model. I had never offered opportunities for my colleagues to evaluate my sermons and offer constructive feedback. My “espoused” theory of action was completely inconsistent with my “theory-in-use.”
Argyris’s research led him to look more deeply at how middle-level leaders relate to their peers and senior leaders when confronted with the risk of failure. He found that defensive reasoning was consistent across all organizational layers. Based on this, he then asked: “How can an organization begin to change, by teaching its members to reason productively?” The first step is to get the leaders at the top to critically examine and change their theories-in-use. Unless leaders at the top become aware of the ways they reason defensively and the counterproductive consequences that result, there will be no real progress. Any change will be fleeting.
The truth is that change is a learning process. But for integral change to exist, the leader must first submit to self-criticism regarding whether his theory of action is contradictory or not. We are all susceptible to adopting ways of acting according to the ideals and expectations around us. This always happens without us noticing. The effective leader is the one who uses self-criticism as a tool, knowing how to identify whether his espoused theory of action really matches his theory-in-use.
