Flawed Advice and the Management Trap: How Managers Can Know When They're Getting Good Advice and When They're Not (Hardcover)

by Chris Argyris (Author) "ONE OF THE MOST OFTEN-CITED BOOKS on personal leadership is Steven Covey's Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (1989), which is based on a set..." (more)
Key Phrases: skilled unawareness, organizational defensive routines, productive reasoning, West Coast, North American (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Management consulting is big business. Consultants often make very good money, and the good ones throw intriguing ideas on the table and get people excited about their work. But is any of their advice actually useful? Does it get implemented and lead to more productive workplaces? Chris Argyris thinks that most of it doesn't work, because it has too many "abstract claims, inconsistencies, and logical gaps to be useful as a concrete basis for concrete actions in concrete settings." No matter what managers hear from consultants, they ultimately resort to these five behaviors, according to Argyris: State a message that's inconsistent ("You're in charge of this, but check in with Steve"); act as if it's not inconsistent; make the inconsistency undiscussable; make the undiscussability undiscussable; act as if you're not doing any of the above. Flawed Advice and the Management Trap shows managers how to break out. He shows that a choice is sound when the emphasis is on facts and accumulated data and isn't influenced by the relative power positions of the people involved.

Top company managers and human-resources professionals will probably find this book most interesting. For them, the ideas in Flawed Advice and the Management Trap show the path away from a management style that breeds resentment and internecine warfare and points toward one that allows the facts to speak for themselves. --Lou Schuler

Review
Argyris' premise is that virtually all the consultants are wrong, whatever their credos. They give advice too vague to be useful, make promises that can't be tested, and don't explain the theories behind it all....It's a rigorous thesis that leaves behind a feeling that few things are certain--except that Chris Argyris writers very entertainingly and wisely about management and business. -- Mark Hendricks, American Airlines Magazine, January 2000

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; illustrated edition edition (January 13, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195132866
• ISBN-13: 978-0195132861
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #494,364 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

58 of 58 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Overcome the Communications and Defensiveness Stalls, May 28, 2000

By	Professor Donald Mitchell "Jesus Makes Me a P... (Boston) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)

This is one of the most interesting and useful management books I have read in many years. I would give it 10 Stars if that were possible!

As a management consultant, I always begin assignments by asking our clients what has worked well and what has not worked well with past assignments that consultants have done for them. Almost all of the problems are associated with so-called experts who espoused a theory, had a few examples of where the theory seemed to fit, and left the client with no idea of how to use the advice.

Recently, I had a chance to read Simplicity, which points out that most employees would love to implement new directions, but they almost never receive the information, learning opportunities, or tools to make it possible. As you can imagine, this can lead to a lot of frustration. One of my hypotheses about why this occurs is because the executives espousing the change don't know how to provide the information, learning opportunities, or tools needed.

As someone who reads and reviews a lot of business books, I am constantly struck by the flaws in the arguments that the authors propose. You can imagine how pleased I was to see that Chris Argyris (one of the best management thinkers around) was bothered by many of the same flaws. You will get a chance to see obvious errors in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey and Managing Change by John Kotter, just to mention two examples from the book.

Argyris argues that the authors of these flawed theories are themselves unaware of the flaws. Essentially, all useless management theories have problems in one or more of these areas: the executive is in unilateral control of whatever is going to happen next (rather than letting everyone participate in a meaningful way), the executive focuses on winning instead of losing, the executive suppresses her/his negative feelings as well as those of others, and action is based on rational principles. The result of this approach is to discourage communication, and to make everyone feel defensive. This habit reinforces two of the most common sources of stalled progress in organizations.

Argyris proposes an alternate approach which feature relying on valid information that can be independently verified (99 out of 100 business books have no such grounding); detailed information about what needs to be done; and free and open discussion of the subject and process. Books like Harnessing Complexity and The Soul at Work would applaud these points as well.

Essentially, Argyris says that consultants and authors are proposing command-and-control solutions based on rhetoric that the proposers do not really believe in and apply themselves. That's a pretty big indictment. If you go back and read the early books on subjects like reengineering, TQM, and Economic Value Added, look for the independently verifiable data, encouragement for all to discuss, and directions for how each person in the organization should apply the ideas. If you are like me, you won't find them. Hmmmm! Something to think about!

Argyris indirectly points out that companies discourage people from raising fundamental questions, like what are our objectives in this situation, how are we supposed to reconcile conflicts, and how can we get back on track. That's an essential part of the stalled mindset like so concerns me in my writing and consulting.

In fact, Argyris points out that success can reinforce complacency and command-and-control management by creating the presumption that everything the company does is perfect.

If you can learn to avoid and ignore flawed advice, you'll be on your way to becoming an irresistible growth enterprise! A great step in that process is to help everyone in your organization to learn ways to locate actions that will leave you better off, regardless of what happens next with important forces beyond your control. Get growing faster by helping everyone grow their capabilities in your organization in this critical skill set!

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Left Hand Column, March 27, 2000

By	"theoryz" (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews

Chris Argyris once again illuminates the never ending task of closing the gap between Espoused- Theory and Theory-in-Use plagueing so many organizations today. The cover-ups, the politicing, the back-stabbing, and useless meetings that go on are largely a result of the inability of individuals to surface assumptions and question the mental models that shape behavior. Argyris provides a usefull set of tools for surfacing mental models to ensure that theories are actionable and not perpetuating the counterproductive behaviors mentioned above. I found the example of a consulting project gone sour quite amusing, having recently left a firm with quite similar dysfunctional behavior.

I recommend this book to those unfamiliar with Agryris and his work as a great introduction to some of his thinking on learning organizations (Agryris' work provides some of the foundation for Senge's "The Fifth Discipline") and a humorous roast of some popular advice from authors like Stephen Covey, Doyle & Strauss, John Katzenbach, notable CEOs, and other "successful leader's".

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars flawed advice, January 12, 2001

By	Jeffrey L. Seglin "Seglin" (Boston, MA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Argyris tackles the question of why managers continue to be drawn to the latest management advice offered in books and articles in spite of the fact that a great deal of it is flawed. He attempts here to clue readers in on how to tell the difference between good and bad advice. He warns against embracing any "Wow!" type advice from top-selling gurus. Too often with this type of stuff, Argyris argues, managers use external advice rather than base their management on getting a read of the internal commitment of employees. As a result, managers lose credibility. Argyris takes on big-name gurus like Stephen Covey and calls into question the true validity of his work by showing the flaws in Covey's thinking. He uses the example that Covey uses of not telling his son how he truly feels when he wants to get him to do something because he knows his sons knows. Argyris looks at this theory of Covey that trust brings out the best in people and points that that while it may be "morally attractive," t's just not clear how "a combination of trust and mistrust, accompanied by cover-ups, will bring out the best in people." One of the take-aways from this book is the need to continually test and challenge management approaches and not to rest of what's successful, since success, Argyris writes "can breed conservatism which in a fast-changing, competitive environment can cause failure."