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Despite having read much of his
writing, I was unprepared for what I learned when I first saw
Chris Argyris practice his approach in an informal workshop…
Ostensibly an academic presentation of Argyris’s methods, it
quickly evolved into a powerful demonstration of what action
science practitioners call ‘reflection in action’…. Within a
matter of minutes, I watched the level of alertness and
‘presentness’ of the entire group rise ten notches – thanks
not so much to Argyris’s personal charisma, but to his skilful
practice of drawing out… generalizations. As the afternoon
moved on, all of us were led to see (sometimes for he first
time in our lives) subtle patterns of reasoning which underlay
our behaviour; and how those patterns continually got us into
trouble. I had never had such a dramatic demonstration of own
mental models in action… But even more interesting, it became
clear that, with proper training, I could become much more
aware of my mental models and how they operated. This was
exciting.
Peter Senge (1990: 182-3) talks about his own
experience of Argyris as a teacher.
Theories of action: theory in use and espoused theory
Our starting point is Argyris and
Schön’s (1974) argument that people have mental maps with
regard to how to act in situations. This involves the way they
plan, implement and review their actions. Furthermore, they
assert that it is these maps that guide people’s actions
rather than the theories they explicitly espouse. What is
more, fewer people are aware of the maps or theories they do
use (Argyris, 1980). One way of making sense of this is to say
that there is split between theory and action. However,
Argyris and Schön suggest that two theories of action
are involved/l espoused theory and theory in use. -
http://www.infed.org/thinkers/argyris.htm
Adding Ego as a third theory of action.
After being inspired by reading Argris and Shoen Theory in
Practice, 1974, and having spent several years arriving at
Generati, I realized that while the theory in use-->the
observed theory, implicity to the person behaving, and the
espoused theory (what we value)-->the one that people intend,
and tell to others about what lies in their assumptions and
beliefs...
... A third theory that is made
explicit about the person's behavior when observed and
questioned about it, which is the best description between the
explanation of the behavior (we reconcile our behavior to make
ourselves look good mostly!), or what i can refer to as the
ego theory.
The intention, or espoused theory
arises out of what we think/feel we wanted to do before we
knew what we did as our theory in use, because the ego theory
is always what we have to explain when what we see we know, or
intend, works or not, and how that fits with how we must shape
the perception of others when there are discrepancies between
the theories about our self.
Ultimately, it is the ego defense,
or ego theory that creates the most difficulties and is an
artifact of ego complexity. Defensive reasoning comes
out of the
Personality Dynamics and Developmental
Dynamics, and it's a
EES way of identifying maps
that can help us guide the process of almost everything
related to human interaction.
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