Team Building - Developing Performing Teams

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Team Conflicts, Argyris, Team Learning, Peter Senge, skill, Team Building, Teamwork, collective work-products, leadership, Michael Dell, John Medica

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Team Conflicts Contd...

In such organizations, it is often believed that managers should know everything that is happening in the organization. Thus, they become incapable of accepting their ignorance. Obviously, knowing everything that is happening in the organization or having solutions to all the problems in an organization is impossible. But these managers cannot accept that. As a result, they put on an appearance that they know what is happening, and why it is happening. Over a period of time, their assumptions and behaviors get reinforced. They attain mastery at appearing to know what is happening. These managers are forced to behave in either of the ways shown below:

• Some managers internalize the air of confidence and believe that they have solutions to important problems in the organization. To protect their belief they do not accept other alternatives and choose to be closed to other ideas. They believe that to remain confident they have to be rigid.

• Other managers believe that they need to know what is causing problems in the organization. They also believe that they have solutions to the problems but are not very confident of the solutions. However, they maintain a mask of confidence and hide their ignorance.

Thus, some managers become highly skilled at using defensive routines that preserve their image as capable decision makers. Slowly, this behavior sinks into organizational culture. According to Argyris individuals play political games in organizations because that is human nature and the nature of organizations. Human beings are carriers of defensive routines, and organizations are hosts. Once the organizations are infected they too become carriers.¹⁹

As teams are part of organizations, they too exhibit defensive routines. These routines block a team's energies and the talents that could have been directed at realizing the team's purpose. Defensive routines also prevent collective learning in teams.

Overcoming defensive routines
Peter Senge suggests two ways to overcome defensive routines. The first is to diminish the emotional threat that causes defensive behavior. If the assumption that "incomplete or faulty understanding is acceptable in some situations" is proposed and enforced strongly in the organization, managers would definitely be less defensive.

The second way to reduce defensive routines is to make them the subject of discussion. Leaders must learn to confront and discuss defensiveness without arousing further defensiveness. Leaders can adopt self-disclosure as a primary step to confront defensiveness. They can start with an attempt to identify reasons for their own defensiveness. While exploring the causes, they can invite members for joint inquiry. This method aims at reducing defensive routines through reflection and mutual inquiry. The leader is revealing his own assumptions, exposing his thinking, opening them to influence, and encouraging others also to do the same. This method helps in overcoming defensiveness in the team.

19] In Strategy, Change, and Defensive routines , By: Argyris, Chris, Boston, Pitman, 1985. Mar/Apr93.