One of the giants in the field of organizational learning left us a few years ago. Chris Argyris, former professor at Yale and Harvard Universities and author of hundreds of books and articles, passed away at the age of 90 in 2013. He co-founded along with Richard Beckhard, Edgar Schein and Warren Bennis, the concept of organizational development. (Click to read his WIki bio.)
These terms with which Argyris has been so connected are often heard but not really understood by all. Organizational development is a deliberately planned, organization-wide effort to increase an organization's effectiveness and/or efficiency. It is a systemic learning and development strategy intended to change the basics of beliefs, attitudes and relevance of values, and structure of the current organization to better absorb disruptive technologies, shrinking or exploding market opportunities and ensuing challenges and chaos. The primary purpose of OD is to develop the organization, not to train or develop the staff.
The related term organizational learning defines an area of knowledge within organizational theory that studies models and theories about the way an organization learns and adapts.
In organizational development (OD), learning is a characteristic of an adaptive organization, i.e., an organization that is able to sense changes in signals from its environment (both internal and external) and adapt accordingly. OD specialists endeavor to assist their clients to learn from experience and incorporate the learning as feedback into the planning process.
As change occurs more rapidly in our work environment, companies and organizations must learn to respond wisely to changing markets and technologies, customer needs, a more diverse workforce, just to name a few. Following Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, organizations must develop the skills to recognize and respond to these changes of they are to evolve and insure their survival. We see many examples of formerly solid companies that rapidly become extinct because of their inability to identify the need and implement necessary changes.
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In addition to looking at whole organizations, Argyris also introduced some theories applicable to individual human interactions. His Ladder of Inference is one you will be familiar with if we have worked together in the past on interpersonal communications issues. Read about it here:http://www.solonline.org/?tool_ladder_of_infer.
Along with the Ladder of Inference, Argyris’ ideas appear numerous times in the seminal book on organizational learning of Peter Senge, et. al. entitled The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook. This is not a short or simple book, but a veritable encyclopedia of ideas for designing and guiding more effective organizational learning.
Here is a short video clip of Chris Argyris talking about culture and management. (4:10)
He passed away in 2013 but the ideas provided by Argyris will live on and become increasingly important as we face the challenges of accelerating change.
- Herb