ona76

As theory-in-action forms a large part of the OU EBI there are a lot of academic papers to engage with. One I have just read is Argyris’ (1986) Reinforcing Organisational Defensive Routines. He defines Defensive Routines as any policies or  actions that prevent the organisation from experiencing pain or threat and simultaneously preventing learning how to correct the causes of the threat in the first place. These routines prevent effective implementation of any managerial function e.g. marketing, finance or HR. He believes that HR, despite not wanting to, generally end up designing programmes that reinforce these defensive mechanisms without realising it.

This entwined action causes line management to view HR professionals as weak; viewing the HR function as too primitive to change things effectively. This causes line executives to temper HR budgets and limit HR’s action in management development, organisational development and training initiatives. He concludes that defensive routines organise into self-reinforcing loops that can act to create problems such as the lack of effective line leadership.

To an extent, I would agree with this view. But I think it comes out of the different ways employees are incentivised and rewarded in different departments. For example, if your pay and bonuses are determined by the Director of the Department, HR diktats can be seen as “mixed messages” as they probably don’t help you get your day-to-day job done because of the power & politics you probably engage with at the department level. Managing people and their career development, rightly or wrongly can be seen as holding you back from your own career goals, particularly if your bonuses are related to how many sales you bring into the organisation.

Argyris points this out when he states that the problem from the line manager’s point of view is that such action (don’t rely on politics, surface bad decisions etc) do not make sense if line managers are to get their job done. This is particularly apparent when management messages are not seen as credible when top management act indecisively, play politics, and are risk averse.

No doubt other people in different industries may have a different view on the paper, but I think it is worth thinking about how pay and benefits systems incentivise employee behaviour, particularly in different functions and industries. I think it can contribute to a lot of negative outcomes, such as the misalignment of financial advisors paid commission by the  insurance agents rather than taking a fee from the client.