Organizations need a lot more employee engagement and learning to take place

Organizations around the world are struggling for years to make changes in order to adapt to the new management principles, processes and systems. To make this happen, they need a lot more employee engagement and learning to take place. In line with this, I have recently stumbled on a very interesting article by Chris Argyris.  Even though written almost 25 years ago, this passage from an article has not lost its relevance at all: 

“I have come in contact with any number of companies struggling with this transition from command-and-control hierarchy to employee empowerment and organizational learning, and every one of them is its own worst enemy... Companies that hope to reap the rewards of a committed, empowered workforce have to learn to stop kidding themselves. External commitment, positive thinking at any price, employees protected from the consequences and even the knowledge of cause and effect – this mindset may produce superficial honesty and single-loop learning, but it will never yield the kind of learning that might actually help a company change.” 

Reference:

Chris Argyris (1994). Good Communication that Blocks Learning. Harvard Business Review, July-August.