Chris Argyris- Administrative Thinkers

Chris Argyris

He is a participative management theorist. According to him, most of the organizations around us are under-performing  He believes that in these organizations, there are certain inconsistencies or incongruences. Thus, he identified three important areas of problem.

1.      The problem of individual’s growth towards personal or psychological maturity- He categorized individuals into two types. This idea has been discussed through the idea of Immaturity- Maturity Paradigm.

a.       Immature Personalities- He is referring to individuals who carry the characters of an infant.

b.      Mature Personalities- He is referring to individuals who carry the characters of an adult.

S. No.	Immature Personality	Mature Personality
1.	Passive	Active
2.	Dependent	Independent
3.	Limited Behaviour	Multiple Behaviour
4.	Erratic and Shallow Interest	Stable and Deeper Interest
5.	Short Term Perspective	Long Term Perspective
6.	Feeling of Subordination	Feeling of Equality or Superiority
7.	Lack of Self-Awareness	Possess Self-Awareness

He emphasizes that most of the contemporary organizations today are conducive to the immature personalities although most of members of these organizations are capable of being turned into mature personalities. He has also dealt with the types of managerial philosophies.

A.    Model I- Theory in use- Bureaucratic Pyramidal Value System- Similar to McGregor’s Theory X.

B.     Model II- Theory in use- Democratic Humanistic Value System- Similar to McGregor’s Theory Y.

Most of the organizations today practice mechanistic managerial philosophy, thereby; they are directive and authority or control oriented in nature. He further says that this type of managerial philosophy lead to the fundamental inconsistencies between the organizational culture and individual members within the organization resulting into a feeling of frustration, loss of interest and lack of performance.

He is trying to emphasize that while the managerial philosophy is mechanistic, the individual personalities are primarily mature resulting into contradictions and inconsistencies. This inconsistency leads to a sense of frustration as explained earlier. The organizations today do not provide the individual with conducive environment to grow psychologically and develop their personality.

2.      The problem of interpersonal competence- Interpersonal Competence refers to the Individual’s ability to successfully operate in a group situation or in a social relation. He believes that since the contemporary organizations are manned with mechanistic philosophies, there is low interpersonal competence. Such organizations are full of mutual suspicion, unhealthy competition, jealousy and lack of co-operation. All these factors undermine the performance of the individual. Individual’s growth and personality depends considerably on higher interpersonal competence. He has defined four types of individual behaviour to establish interpersonal competence.

a.       Being open to other’s ideas.

b.      Accepting responsibility for one’s own action or behaviour.

c.       Being ready for experimentation with new ideas or strategies.

d.      Helping others to be open, to accept responsibility and being ready for experimentation.

3.      The problem of Appropriateness of the organizations or organizational structures- He maintains that a single type of organizational structure is not suitable or appropriate to address all types of jobs or activities. As the nature of job varies, the organizational structure must also vary accordingly. He has discussed four different types of organizational structures.

a.       Pyramidal Structure- It is a rigid and classical structure. It is suitable to deal with the routine tasks or non- innovative activities.

b.      Modified Formal Structure- It is a hierarchic structure but in terms of processes and mechanics of its operations, it is democratic in character. It is similar to System 4 propounded by Likert. This organization is comparatively more efficient than the pyramidal structure. Apart from routine activities, it can efficiently deal with the group activities.

c.       Participative Structure- This is comparatively a less hierarchic and flexible organization. It is more organic in character. This is a structure which is more suitable to activities which require creativity and imagination. It can efficiently deal with group activities or activities that involve interdepartmental or interorganizational co-operation.

d.      Matrix Organization- It is a superimposition of the project organization over the functional organization. It is a non-hierarchic organization or a flatter organization. These organizations carry the required authority and autonomy to deal with the concerned issues. These structures are primary suitable to deal with issues of emergent nature or those require multiple skills or specialization.

Apart from this, Argyris along with another theorist (E. Wright Bakke) developed a theory called as Fusion Process explaining the organizational efficiency. These theorists believed that within the organizations, there are two types of processes.

1.      Personalizing Process- It refers to all those activities which when undertaken results into the achievement of the individual’s goal.

2.      Socializing Process- It refers to all those activities which when undertaken results into the achievement of the organizational goal.

Fusion Process- It refers to the simultaneous operation of the Personalizing Process and the Socializing Process. The activities within the organization should be so arranged which when performed should not only address the individual goal but also the organizational goal. The individual potential is achieved when there is fusion process within the organization i.e. the individuals are utilized maximally for the organizational goal.

Argyris’s Criticism towards the Classical Theorists

1.      While referring to the classical theories, he says that the philosophy promoted by them creates in an individual the feeling of frustration, loss of interest and lack of performance.

2.      Similar to Dwight Waldo, he criticized the classical theories to be unscientific for they have ignored the informal aspect of the organization and the irrationalities within the organization.

3.      He is also critical of some of the humanistic theorists. He says that these theorists underemphasized on interpersonal relations especially in small groups. While referring to Simon, he says that Simon’s concept of Satisficing Man and his concept of mechanism of organizational influence are mutually contradictory.