book
Overcoming Organizational Defenses
Argyris, Chris. Overcoming Organizational Defenses. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1990.
Related concepts4 concepts
Concept
Correction
Correction names the lived work of narrowing the gap between what was assumed and what is actually happening. It becomes important whenever systems, beliefs, or coordination can drift while still feeling operational. It helps preserve shared reality and learning, but can fail when every correction spawns new framing instead of updated contact with conditions. It differs from repair because correction updates belief and behavior; repair addresses damaged standing and trust. It differs from revisability because correction is the act; revisability is the designed capacity to keep correcting.
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Concept
Erosion
Erosion names the direction in which a group, system, or relationship moves when adaptability shrinks—when influence stops changing direction under pressure, when correction channels narrow, when insulation builds while the surface still looks coordinated. Scalability then determines whether that erosion remains coordinated or also loses reach. It becomes important because erosion is structural rather than dramatic; systems can erode long before they visibly fail, and what looks like stability from inside the room may be thinning fit unseen. Low scalability alone does not mean erosion: a group may still renew while struggling to coordinate at scale, just as it may stay highly coordinated while losing the ability to change course. It helps to notice erosion early—before learning collapses, before disagreement is recoded as disloyalty, before temporary workarounds outlast the emergency they were made for. Erosion often appears as ordinary choices that teach people correction is costly: warnings that travel farther but change less on arrival, exceptions that start appearing in training materials, harm that gets buried in vague wording. The question erosion raises is: is adaptability shrinking, and is coordination holding or fraying as that rigidity sets in? What ordinary patterns are teaching people that speaking up carries cost? Erosion differs from decay in that erosion names the process of thinning, while decay names the end state.
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Concept
Feedback
Feedback names how systems stay in contact with their own effects. It becomes important whenever action and consequence are separated by time, scale, or abstraction. It helps preserve learning, correction, and trust in ongoing coordination, but can fail when dashboards stay green while lived harm accumulates off the ledger. It differs from trust because feedback is the returning signal itself; trust is the bridge that lets people act before every signal arrives. It differs from correction because feedback is what returns; correction is the work of updating in response.
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Concept
Repair
Repair names the work of mending what authority, coordination, or relationship has strained—not merely explaining, apologizing, or documenting harm. It becomes important after drift, betrayal, or structural decoupling has weakened the link between action and answerability. It helps preserve legitimacy and renewed participation, but can fail when repair language persists while traction disappears—or when more interpretation accelerates rather than constrains authority. It differs from correction because repair addresses damaged standing and trust, not only mistaken belief; it differs from accountability because repair seeks restoration, not only exposure; it differs from witness because repair still aims to change the scene, not only preserve record.
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Related books2 books
Book
When Others Look to You
Renewal and Erosion in Leadership
A leadership field guide to how influence forms, how trust is renewed, and how erosion begins when responsibility drifts from practice.
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Book
When Others Look to You: Companion Edition
Forming, Renewing, Eroding, Repeating
How leadership influence forms, renews, erodes, and repeats across the full cycle of responsibility in practice.
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