Defensive Unwillingness

Having been involved in developing the subject for more than 20 years, I would suggest an even broader societal reason that is buried in Alan Kantrow’s cited explanation for institutional forgetfulness: an underlying reluctance to be objectively dispassionate about one’s performance. There is a substantial body of academic research that confirms the unwillingness of Western companies and their managers to examine objectively their decisions, especially their mistakes. Harvard Professor Chris Argyris explains that whenever a manager’s performance comes under scrutiny, the individual begins to feel embarrassed, threatened, and because they are so well paid, guilty:

Far from being a catalyst for real change, such feelings cause most to react defensively. So, when their learning strategies go wrong, they become defensive, screen out criticism and put the “blame” on anyone and everyone but themselves. In short their inability to learn shuts down precisely at the moment they need it the most. (Argyris, 1991)

This is explained as a particularly well-developed managerial ego. Commenting on the difficulties of teaching managers how to learn, Thomas Barry, a top U.S. industrialist^[1] describes the apparent amnesia evident in many of his top employees: “For many years I have been troubled by the inconsistent attitudes of high-achievement professionals who have superb intellects yet appear not to learn from experiences or colleagues.” His explanation is that companies attract “the stereotypical self-motivated, supercharged MBAs whose past successes build their defences against being incorrect, hence against any need to learn or change” (Barry, 1991).

^[1] Former president and CEO of New York–based Rockefeller & Co. and president of Marlboro.

My additional explanation (not academically proven, I should add) is that in our education and in industry/commerce, and indeed wider society, we are socialized to encourage insecurity in the belief that it will generate fewer mistakes. As individuals’ defensiveness shows, it also discourages learning—the antithesis of the desired result—a condition that, in practice, reduces the skill of much decision making to little more than intuition, untested judgement, political expediency, subjective thinking, experimentation, and delay. Put differently, it is guesswork coupled with the ability to play the game of corporate politics well (Kransdorff, 2006). Business education should, surely, be designed to make decision making less uncertain and decidedly more professional.