Barriers to Learning

As you try to facilitate organizational learning, you will encounter barriers embedded within the structure of all complex organizations. Argyris labels these barriers resistance to change; unwillingness to discuss the undiscussible; need for control; a short-term focus; simple solutions to complex problems; and the “skilled incompetence” of managers.

1. Resistance to change is the tendency we have to maintain the familiar and avoid trying something new and different. Moving from a command-and-control style of leadership to an empowerment form of leadership, changing over from an elaborate hierarchical organizational structure to a flat, boundaryless organizational structure or even changing individual-centered work processes to team-centered work processes— these are all difficult because employees tend to focus on what problems this will create for them personally, rather than what they will learn from the change process that will build on their strengths and strengthen the organization.

2. Not discussing the undiscussible prevents useful information from surfacing. All work groups and whole organizations agree not to discuss some things; usually, this agreement is implicit—a shared but unspoken understanding that the issue will not be mentioned. Your subordinates will not talk to you about their dissatisfaction with how much time you spend in the office; your work group will not discuss problems with the CEO’s business strategy, which they have been working on for months but think is a waste of time and resources; your co-workers will not confront one another with communication problems for fear of embarrassing someone and then having criticism come back at them. The people who have the information and the person who needs to hear the information are unknowingly colluding with each other: they are preventing discussion of the very things that get in the way of organizational learning.

3. People have a need for control. This is manifested in the structures that we build for our organizations: organization charts, policy manuals, published rules and regulations, performance evaluation processes, budget and expenses monitoring, internal security systems, and the design of physical spaces. All these things are ways of exercising control over the behavior of employees, though each is an aspect of organizational culture that holds some value in a large, complex business. They cease adding value when we stop learning from them and about them, however. Continually ask yourself these questions:

•   How is this process adding to my understanding of our organization and our business?

•   How can this process be improved so that it helps us be more successful in achieving our goals?

4. Short-term, simple solutions to complex problems might provide us with some relief in difficult situations, but do not

help us learn. Removing a challenging employee from a team without confronting the problem that the employee is surfacing or deciding that you will review all expenses submitted for reimbursement because you suspect that people are padding reimbursement requests, or even using layoffs to reduce costs before first examining the entire enterprise for other opportunities to control costs or increase revenue are all examples of actions that might be necessary but usually represent short-term, simple solutions. These kinds of situations offer tremendous opportunities for learning for everyone in the organization. If you take the easy way out and fail to invest time, effort, resources, and emotion in the big picture and long view you may find temporary relief, but nobody will learn; the problems will continue because nothing will have changed in the elements of the organization’s structure that are producing these problems.

5. Skilled incompetence is a strong, but accurate description of a common operative disease: our natural tendency as managers to avoid embarrassing or threatening interactions with others by changing the subject, placing blame on others, or not accepting responsibility for problem situations. When we do this, we miss out on an opportunity to learn from others and reflect on our own behavior. To learn, you must ask yourself, What is it about what I am doing or saying that contributes to other people behaving in ineffective and destructive ways? You will need feedback from others to answer this question, and you will have to listen non-defensively to the answers. Learn from the experience of those managers who have already gone down this path and learned from their mistakes.

As a manager, you can strengthen your organization by helping individuals, teams, and the organization as a whole get past the barriers and open themselves up to the possibility of learning and change. Start by using the worksheet that follows to assess where your organization stands in terms of these barriers.