Testers should not be defensive – A review of “Teaching Smart People How to Learn” by Chris Argyris
Testers often make suggestions about preventing bugs and sometimes find that these suggestions are rejected. Defensive reasoning can be a cause of their suggestions being rejected. Chris Argyris explains how defensive reasoning can prevent a company from learning and then explains how a company can overcome its defensiveness. I discovered Chris Argyris’s work through the Profound Book Club
Suggestions made by testers about preventing bugs are about learning because the tester has had to learn to make the suggestion. Also, both the team and the tester can learn by trying the suggestion.
Business success depends on learning[1]. Learning is not about motivation. Effective learning is about how you think[2]. Defensive reasoning brings learning to a halt [3].
People act differently from how they espouse. Everyone develops a ‘theory of action’ a set of rules that they use to design and implement their behaviour[4]. However, most people’s behaviour, their theory-in-use, differs from their theory of action. There is a universal human tendency to behave according to four basic values:
- To remain in unilateral control
- To maximise ‘winning’ and minimise ‘losing’
- To suppress negative feelings
- To be as rational as possible
The values avoid embarrassment or threat, feeling vulnerable or incompetent, and lead to defensive behaviour and short circuits learning[5].
Sometimes, the rejection a tester experiences when their suggestion is rejected feels aggressive, but it is defensive because the rejection comes from the four points above.
People can be taught to recognise their reasoning when designing and implementing actions[5]. Once a company has embarked on this type of learning they will discover the kind of reasoning that overcomes defensiveness. Organisations should learn to reason productively, and when they do they will discover the kind of reasoning necessary to reduce and overcome organisational defensiveness[6]. The first step is for managers to examine their theory-in-use critically. When managers do this they are learning how to learn[7]. One way this can be done is by connecting reasoning to a business problem, for example with a case study.[8]
Reading this concise book is helpful for testing professionals. If testers can see the reasons for the defensive behaviour blocking their suggestions they can avoid becoming defensive and work on helping the company to reason productively.
References:
[1] Teaching Smart People How to Learn by Chris Argyris. (2008, p1 )
[2] Teaching Smart People How to Learn by Chris Argyris. (2008, p5 )
[3] Teaching Smart People How to Learn by Chris Argyris. (2008, p21 )
[4] Teaching Smart People How to Learn by Chris Argyris. (2008, p23 )
[5] Teaching Smart People How to Learn by Chris Argyris. (2008, p25 )
[6] Teaching Smart People How to Learn by Chris Argyris. (2008, p44 )
[7] Teaching Smart People How to Learn by Chris Argyris. (2008, p64 )
[8] Teaching Smart People How to Learn by Chris Argyris. (2008, p47 )
Teaching Smart People How to Learn is available as a book and as an article. I have used page references from the book: