Defensive routines (Argyris)
Habitual actions or policies that protect people from embarrassment or threat but also stop them finding and fixing the causes of the problem. The classic form: send a mixed message, act as if it is not mixed, make the mixed message undiscussable, and make its undiscussability undiscussable.
What drives it
It protects face, both one’s own and others’, and keeps control of the conversation. Argyris argued that most capable professionals hold an espoused theory of openness but act on a theory-in-use of unilateral control and avoiding embarrassment, and cannot see the gap.
How it shows
Work
In a leader: “I want you to take full ownership, but run it by me first”; asking for candid feedback and then explaining why it is wrong; talking about a person’s performance with everyone except the person. In a team: the same problem on every quarterly review, everyone privately agreeing the strategy is not working and nobody saying so, polite meetings followed by real ones in the car park, the ‘easing in’ question that hints at criticism without stating it. Argyris called this skilled incompetence: the smoother the people, the better they are at avoiding the hard conversation. As the leader: you are probably fluent in it, because it works for advancement, and your team will copy whatever you model.
Relationships
Families run the same routines: the topic everyone knows not to raise at dinner, the parent who asks for honesty and then sulks, the sibling who is told one thing and treated another way. In family businesses succession is often the master undiscussable.
Self
You plan what to say so as to win without seeming to, you ask leading questions rather than state your view, and you feel a small relief when a difficult item drops off the agenda. The tell is privately reasoning about someone’s motives and never testing the reasoning with them.
What tells it apart
Social defences against anxiety (Menzies Lyth): Menzies Lyth’s social defences are built into structures and procedures that shield people from anxiety in the work itself; Argyris’s defensive routines live in conversation and reasoning patterns and protect people from embarrassment and threat.
Groupthink: Groupthink produces a confident, cohesive decision; defensive routines produce endless circling, private cynicism and no real decision on the hard issue.
Passive aggression: Passive aggression is hostility expressed indirectly by one person; defensive routines are shared, polite, often well-meant, and the whole group colludes in them.
A test
Name the undiscussable out loud in a meeting and ask people to test your reasoning; if the room goes quiet, changes the subject or reassures you, the routine is active.
Questions to carry
- When the undiscussable was named aloud, what did the room do next?
- Which topic at work do I help keep off the table, and whose embarrassment am I protecting?
How strong the research is
clinical. Built from decades of case work and recorded conversations in organisations, widely used in consulting and executive education, but tested mainly through case studies rather than controlled research.
Where it comes from
Chris Argyris and Donald Schön, 1974 and 1978; Chris Argyris, 1985 and 1990 (Overcoming Organizational Defenses)
Sources
- Amy C. Edmondson, Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams (1999)