Argyris and Schön's Theories for Action

Argyris and Schön (1974, 1996) carry the issue of interpersonal effectiveness a step further. They argue that individual behavior is controlled by personal theories for action—assumptions that inform and guide behavior. Argyris and Schön distinguish two kinds of theory. Espoused theories are accounts individuals provide whenever they try to describe, explain, or predict their behavior. Theories-in-use guide what people actually do. A theory-in-use is an implicit program or set of rules that specifies how to behave.

Argyris and Schön discovered significant discrepancies between espoused theories and theories-in-use, which means that people aren't doing what they think they are. Managers typically see themselves as more rational, open, concerned for others, and democratic than others see them. Such blindness is persistent because people learn little from their experience. A major block to learning is a self-protective model of interpersonal behavior that Argyris and Schön refer to as Model I (see Exhibit 8.1).

Model II

How else can a situation like Anne's be handled? Argyris and Schön's Model II offers basic guidelines:

1. Emphasize common goals and mutual influence. Even in a situation as difficult as Anne's, developing shared goals is possible. Deep down, Anne and Harry both want to be successful. Neither benefits from mutual destruction. At times, each needs help and might learn and profit from the other. To emphasize common goals, Anne might ask Harry, “Do we really want an ongoing no-win battle? Wouldn't we both be better off if we worked together to develop a better outcome?”
2. Communicate openly; publicly test assumptions and beliefs. Model II suggests that Anne talk directly to Harry and test her assumptions. She believes Harry deliberately started the rumor, but she is not certain. She suspects Harry will lie if she confronts him, another untested assumption. Anne might say, for example, “Harry, someone started a rumor about me and Steve. Do you know anything about how that story might have been started?” The question might seem dangerous or naive, but Model II suggests that Anne has little to lose and much to gain. Even if she does not get the truth, she lets Harry know she is aware of his game and is not afraid to call him on it.
3. Combine advocacy with inquiry. Advocacy includes statements that communicate what an individual actually thinks, knows, wants, or feels. Inquiry seeks to learn what others think, know, want, or feel. Exhibit 8.2 presents a simple model of the relationship between advocacy and inquiry.

Model II emphasizes integration of advocacy and inquiry. It asks managers to express openly what they think and feel and to actively seek understanding of others' thoughts and feelings. Harry's demand that Anne fire Mark combines high advocacy with low inquiry. He tells her what he wants while showing no interest in her point of view. Such behavior tends to be seen as assertive at best, dominating or arrogant at worst. Anne's response is low in both advocacy and inquiry. In her discomfort, she tries to get out of the meeting without making concessions. Harry might see her as unresponsive, apathetic, or weak.

Model II counsels Anne to combine advocacy and inquiry in an open dialogue. She can tell Harry what she thinks and feels while testing her assumptions and trying to learn from him. This is difficult to learn and practice. Openness carries risks, and it is hard to be effective when you are ambivalent, uncomfortable, or frightened. It gets easier as you become more confident that you can handle others' honest responses. Anne's ability to confront Harry depends a lot on her self-confidence and interpersonal skills. Beliefs can be self-fulfilling. If you tell yourself that it's too dangerous to be open and that you do not know how to deal with difficult people, you will probably be right. But tell yourself the opposite, and you may also be right.

Salovey and Mayer's Emotional Intelligence

The capacity that Argyris (1962) labeled interpersonal competence harked back to Thorndike's definition of social intelligence as “the ability to understand and manage men and women, boys and girls—to act wisely in human relations” (1920, p. 228). Salovey and Mayer (1990) updated Thorndike by coining the term emotional intelligence as a label for skills that include awareness of self and others and the ability to handle emotions and relationships. Salovey and Mayer discovered that individuals who scored relatively high in the ability to perceive accurately, understand, and appraise others' emotions could respond more flexibly to changes in their social environments and were better able to build supportive social networks (Cherniss, 2000; Salovey et al., 1999). In the early 1990s, Daniel Goleman popularized Salovey and Mayer's work in his best-selling book Emotional Intelligence.

Interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence are vital, because personal relationships are a central element of daily life. Many improvement efforts fail not because managers' intentions are incorrect or insincere but because they are unable to handle the social challenges of change. Take the case of a manufacturing organization that proudly announced its “Put Quality First” program. A young manager was assigned to chair a quality team where she worked. Excited about an opportunity to demonstrate leadership, she and her team began eagerly. But her plant manager dropped in and out of team meetings, staying long enough to dismiss any new ideas as impractical or unworkable. The team's enthusiasm quickly faded. The plant manager hoped to demonstrate accessibility and “management by walking around.” No one had the courage to tell him he was killing the initiative.

Informal Roles

In groups, as in organizations, the fit between the individual and the larger system is a central human resource concern. The structural frame emphasizes the importance of formal roles, traditionally defined by a title (one's position in the hierarchy) or a formal job description. In groups and teams, individual roles are often much more informal and implicit on both task and personal dimensions. The right set of task roles helps get work done and makes optimal use of each member's resources. But without a corresponding set of informal roles, individuals feel frustrated and dissatisfied, which may foster unproductive or disruptive behaviors.

Parker (2008) conceptualizes four different informal roles that group members can take in order to contribute to group success. His roles align loosely with our four-frame model:

1. Contributors: task-oriented, structural-frame individuals who help a group develop plans and tactics for moving ahead on the task at hand.
2. Collaborators: big picture, more symbolic types who help a group clarify long-term directions.
3. Communicators: process-oriented, human resource–frame individuals who serve as facilitators and consensus builders.
4. Challengers: political-frame individuals who ask tough questions and push the group to take risks and achieve higher standards.

As Parker's model suggests, every work group has a range of roles that need to be filled. The roles are often fluid, evolving over time as the group moves through phases of its work. Groups do better when task roles align with characteristics of individuals, who bring different interests (some love research but hate writing), skills (some are better at writing, others are better presenters), and varying degrees of enthusiasm (some may be highly committed to the project, while others drag their feet). It is risky, for example, to assign the writing of a final report to a poor writer or to put the most nervous member on stage in front of a demanding audience.

Anyone who joins a group hopes to find a comfortable and satisfying personal role. Imagine a three-person task force. One member, Karen, is happiest when she feels influential and visible. Bob prefers to be quiet and inconspicuous. Teresa finds it hard to participate unless she feels liked and valued. In the early going in any new group, members send implicit signals about roles they prefer, usually without realizing they are doing it. In their first group meeting, Karen jumps in, takes the initiative, and pushes for her ideas. Teresa smiles, compliments other people, asks questions, and says she hopes everyone will get along. Bob mostly just watches.

If the three individuals' preferred roles dovetail, things may go well. Karen is happy to have Bob as a listener, and Bob is pleased that Karen lets him be inconspicuous. Teresa is content if she feels that Karen and Bob like her. Now suppose that Tony, who likes to be in charge, joins the group. Karen and Tony may collide—two alphas who want the same role. The prognosis looks bleaker. But suppose that another member, Susan, signs on. Susan's mission in life is to help other people get along. If Susan can help Karen feel visible, Teresa feel loved, and Tony feel powerful while Bob is left alone, everyone will be happy—and the group should be productive.

Some groups are blessed with a rich set of resources and highly compatible individuals, but many are less fortunate. They have a limited supply of talent, skill, and motivation. They have areas of both compatibility and potential conflict. The challenge is to capitalize on their assets while minimizing liabilities. Unfortunately, many groups fail to identify or discuss the hurdles they face. Avoidance often backfires. Neglected challenges come back to haunt team performance, often at the worst possible moment, when a deadline looms and everyone feels the heat.

It usually works better to deal with issues early on. A major consulting firm produced a dramatic improvement in effectiveness and morale by conducting a team-building process when new “engagement teams” formed to work on client projects. Members discussed the roles they preferred, the resources each individual brought and thoughts about how the group might operate. Initially, many skeptics viewed the team building as a waste of time with doubtful benefits. But the investment in group process at the front end more than paid for itself in effectiveness down the road.

Informal Group Norms

Every group develops informal rules to live by—norms that govern how the group functions and how members conduct themselves. We once observed two families in adjacent sites in the same campground. At first glance, both were alike: two adults, two small children, California license plates. Further observation made it clear that the families had very different unwritten rules.

Family A practiced a strong form of “do your own thing.” Everyone did what he or she wanted, and no one paid much attention to anyone else. Their two-year-old wandered around the campground until he fell down a 15-foot embankment. He lay there wailing while a professor of leadership pondered the risks and rewards of intervening in someone else's family. Finally, he rescued the child and returned him to his parents, who seemed oblivious and indifferent to their son's mishap.

Family B, in contrast, was a model of interdependence and efficiency, operating like a well-oiled machine. Everything was done collectively; each member had a role. A drill sergeant would have admired the speed and precision with which they packed for departure. Even their three-year-old approached her assigned tasks with purpose and enthusiasm.

Like these two families, groups evolve informal norms for “how we operate” (The cultural implications of this idea will be elaborated in Part Five, The Symbolic Frame.) Eventually, such rules are taken for granted as a fixed social reality. The parents in Family A envied Family B. They were plainly puzzled as they asked, “How did they ever get those kids to help out like that? Our kids would never do that!”

Google, like most contemporary organizations, depends a lot on teams, so much so that they started a research project to try to find the secret sauce that made some teams work better than others (Duhigg, 2016). Google studied research by Wooley et al. (2010), which found that teams have a kind of collective IQ—some teams do better than others across a range of different tasks. Team IQ was not related to the intelligence of individual members nor to intuitively plausible factors like cohesion or satisfaction. But more effective groups had higher sensitivity—members were better at reading one another's feelings. They were also more egalitarian—no one dominated, and everyone got a turn. The study also found that the more women on a team the better, maybe because women tend to have higher social sensitivity.

The Google team connected this work to Edmondson's (1999) study of psychological safety: “a shared belief held by members of a team that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking.” Teams with more psychological safety learned better, and teams that learned better performed better. The Google researchers concluded that teams would perform better if they developed norms of shared participation, emotional attunement, and psychological safety (Duhigg, 2016).

With norms, as with roles, early intervention helps. Do we want to be task oriented, no nonsense, and get on with the job? Or would we prefer to be more relaxed and playful? Do we insist on full attendance at every meeting, or should we be more flexible? Must people be unerringly punctual, or would that cramp our style? If individuals miss a deadline, do we stone them or gently encourage them to do better? Do we prize boisterous debate or courtesy and restraint? Groups develop norms to answer such questions.

Informal Networks in Groups

Like informal norms, informal networks—patterns of who relates to whom—help to shape groups. Remember the Titans, a feel-good Hollywood film, tells a story of two football teams whose black and white players were suddenly thrust together as a result of school desegregation. Their coach took them off-site for a week of team building where black and white players roomed together and soon developed bonds. Those relationships became a critical feature of the team's ability to win a state championship.

The Titans, like any team, can be viewed as an informal social network—a series of connections that link members to one another. When the team was first formed, it consisted of two different networks separated by suspicion and antagonism across racial boundaries. The coach intuitively understood something that research has confirmed—informal bonds among members make a big difference. Teams with more informal ties are more effective and more likely to stay together than teams in which members have fewer connections (Balkundi and Harrison, 2006).

Interpersonal Conflict in Groups

Many of the worst horror stories about group life center on personal conflict. Interpersonal strife can block progress and waste time. It can make things unpleasant at best, painful at worst. Some groups experience little conflict, but most encounter predictable differences in goals, perceptions, preferences, and beliefs. The larger and more diverse the group, the greater the likelihood of conflict.

A subtle but powerful source of conflict in groups is two distinct levels of cognition (Healey, Vuori, and Hodgkinson, 2015). One level is conscious and verbal and is reflected in the conversations that members have about what the group is here to do and how it should go about doing it. Another is an unconscious level of “hot” cognition—emotionally charged attitudes, goals, and stereotypes that operate outside of awareness. Conflict between those two levels of cognition can occur both within and between individuals but is hard to recognize and decode because unconscious processes are at work. A team might agree, for example, that “we'll share leadership and work collaboratively.” But suppose that one member has an unconscious goal of being in charge, and another member holds unconscious stereotypes that lead him or her to doubt the capabilities of certain teammates. Both might do things that seem to violate the group's verbal contract while believing that they are just trying to help move things along. They may be puzzled and feel misunderstood if anyone questions their actions.

How can a group cope with interpersonal conflict? The Model I manager typically relies on two strategies: “pour oil on troubled waters” and “might makes right.” As a result, things usually get worse instead of better. The oil-on-troubled-waters strategy views conflict as something to avoid: minimize it, deny it exists, smooth it over, bury it, or circumvent it. Suppose, for example, that Tony in our hypothetical group says that the group needs a leader, and Karen counters that a leader would selfishly dominate the group. Teresa, dreading conflict, might try to bypass it by saying, “I think we're all basically saying the same thing” or “We can talk about leadership later; right now, why don't we find out a little more about each other?”

Smoothing tactics may work if the issue is temporary or peripheral. In such cases, conflict may disappear on its own, much to everyone's relief. But conflict suppressed early in a group's life tends to resurface later—again and again. If smoothing tactics fail and conflict persists, another option is might-makes-right. If Tony senses conflict between Karen and himself, he may employ Model I thinking: Because we disagree, and I am right, she is the problem; I need to get her to shape up. Tony may try any of several strategies to change Karen. He may try to convince her he's right. He may push others in the group to side with him and put pressure on Karen. He may subtly, or not so subtly, criticize or attack her. If Karen thinks she is right and Tony is the problem, the two are headed for a collision that may be painful for everyone.

If Model I is a costly approach to conflict, what else might a group do? Here are some guidelines that often prove helpful.

1. Develop skills. More organizations are recognizing that group effectiveness depends on members' ability to understand what is happening and contribute effectively. Skills like listening, communicating, managing conflict, and building consensus are critical building blocks in a high-performing group.
2. Agree on the basics. Groups too often plunge ahead without taking the time to agree on goals and procedures. Down the road, people continue to stumble over unresolved issues. Shared understanding and commitment around the basics are a powerful glue to hold things together in the face of the inevitable stress of group life.
3. Express conflict productively. Weingart et al. (2015) argue that how conflict is expressed makes a big difference in whether it turns productive or destructive. They focus on two dimensions of conflict expression. One is directness. “I think your statement is wrong” is direct. “Maybe,” is indirect. The other dimension is “intensity of opposition” (Weingart et al., 2015, p. 235). Intensity is high when people become entrenched and start attacking each other. An example: “No way you can change my mind, because your idea is stupid.” Low intensity of opposition is expressed through indications of interest in dialogue and willingness to be influenced. For example: “We disagree, but I'd like to understand your thinking better.” Weingart et al. suggest that groups handle conflict best when they express it directly but minimize oppositional intensity. In other words, they are tough and direct on substance but gentle on one another.
4. Search for common interests. How does a group reach agreement if it starts out divided? It helps to keep asking, “What do we have in common? If we disagree on the issue at hand, how can we put it in a more inclusive framework where we can all agree?” If Tony and Karen clash on the need for a leader, where do they agree? Perhaps both want to do the task well. Recognizing commonalities makes it easier to confront differences. It also helps to remember that common ground is often rooted in complementary differences (Lax and Sebenius, 1986). Karen's desire to be visible is compatible with Bob's preference to be in the background. Conversely, similarity (as when Karen and Tony both want to lead) is often a source of conflict.
5. Experiment. If Tony is sure the group needs a leader (namely, him) and Karen is equally convinced it does not, the group could bog down in endless debate. Susan, the group's social specialist, might propose an experiment: Because Karen sees it one way and Tony sees it another, could we try one meeting with a leader and one without to see what happens? Experiments can be a powerful response to conflict. They offer a way to move beyond stalemate without forcing either party to lose face or admit defeat. Parties may agree on a test even if they can't agree on anything else. Equally important, they may learn something that moves the conversation to a more productive plane.
6. Doubt your infallibility. This was the advice that Benjamin Franklin offered his fellow delegates to the U.S. constitutional convention in 1787: “Having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information, or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise. It is therefore that the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment, and to pay more respect to the judgment of others” (Rossiter, 1966).

   Groups typically possess diverse resources, ideas, and outlooks. A group that sees diversity as an asset and a source of learning has a good chance for a productive discussion and resolution of differences. Conflict can be a good thing—conflict about ideas promotes effectiveness, even though personal conflict gets in the way (Cohen and Bailey, 1997). In the heat of the moment, though, a five-person group can easily turn into five teachers in search of a learner or a lynch mob in search of a victim. At such times, it helps if at least one person asks, “Are we all sure we're infallible? Are we really hearing one another?”

7. Treat differences as a group responsibility. If Tony and Karen are on a collision course, it is tempting for others to stand aside. But all will suffer if the team fails. The debate between Karen and Tony reflects personal feelings and preferences but also addresses leadership as an issue of shared importance.

Leadership and Decision Making in Groups

A final problem that every group must resolve is the question of navigation: “How will we set a course and steer the ship, particularly in stormy weather?” Groups often get lost. Meetings are punctuated with statements like “I'm not sure where we're going” or “Does anyone know what we're talking about?”

Leadership helps groups develop a shared sense of direction and commitment. Otherwise, a group becomes rudderless or moves in directions that no one supports. Noting that teams are capable of very good and very bad performance, Hackman emphasizes that a key function of leadership is setting a compelling direction for the team's work that “is challenging, energizes team members and generates strong collective motivation to perform well” (2002, p. 72). Another key function of leadership in groups, as in organizations, is managing relationships with external constituents. Druskat and Wheeler found that effective leaders of self-managing teams “move back and forth across boundaries to build relationships, scout necessary information, persuade their teams and outside constituents to support one another, and empower their teams to achieve success” (2003, p. 435).

Still a third key leadership function is helping the group manage time. Maruping et al. (2015) found that time pressure hurts team performance when it is badly managed and leads to last-minute chaos and panic. But time pressure improves performance when leadership helps the group organize to deal with it through “scheduling of interim milestones, synchronization of tasks, and restructuring of priorities. These efforts result in higher team performance” (Maruping et al., 2015, p. 2014).

Though leadership is essential, it need not come from only one person. A single leader focuses responsibility and clarifies accountability. But the same individual may not be equally effective for all tasks and circumstances. Groups sometimes do better with a shared and fluid approach, regularly asking, “Who can best take charge in this situation?” Katzenbach and Smith (1993) discovered that a key characteristic of high-performance teams was mutual accountability, fostered when leaders were willing to step back and team members were prepared to share the leadership.

Leadership, whether shared or individual, plays a critical role in group effectiveness and individual satisfaction. Leaders who overcontrol or understructure tend to produce frustration and ineffectiveness (Maier, 1967). Good leaders are sensitive to both task and process. They enlist others actively in managing both. Effective leaders help group members communicate, work together, and do what they are there to do. Less-effective leaders try to dominate and get their own ideas accepted.