Vishal B Jain(19)
Gautam S Karajgi(24)
R. Vinayak(42)

Chris Argyris was born in Newark, New Jersey on July 16, 1923 and grew up in Irvington, New Jersey. During the Second World War he joined the Signal Corps in the U.S. Army eventually becoming a Second Lieutenant (Elkjaer 2000). He went to university at Clark, where he came into contact with Kurt Lewin (Lewin had begun the Research Center for Group Dynamics at M.I.T.). He graduated with a degree in Psychology (1947). He went on to gain an MA in Psychology and Economics from Kansas University (1949), and a Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from Cornell University (he was supervised by William F. Whyte) in 1951. In a distinguished career Chris Argyris has been a faculty member at Yale University (1951-1971) where he served as the Beach Professor of Administrative Science and Chairperson of the department; and the James Bryant Conant Professor of Education and Organizational Behavior at Harvard University (1971- ). Argyris is currently a director of the Monitor Company in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His Research has been shown chronologically in Table 1 below:-

Personality and
Organization (1957) and
Integrating the Individual
and the Organization(1964)

Early research explored the impact of formal organizational structures, control systems, and management on individuals (and how they responded and adapted to them).

Interpersonal Competence
and Organizational
Effectiveness (1962) and
Organization and
Innovation(1965)

Intervention Theory and
Method(1970); Inner
Contradictions of Rigorous
Research (1980) and Action
Science (1985) - with Robert

Theories Of Action
DOUBLE LOOP LEARNING
MODEL I-MODEL II LEARNING

Here the interest lies in the extent to which human
reasoning, not just behavior, can become the basis for
diagnosis and action

Individuals progress at different rates from the total immaturity of early childhood (being passive, dependent, shallow, limited activity) to maturity (active, independent, deeper thoughts, more varied interests). Most organizations have bureaucratic or pyramidal values that foster immaturity in workers and "in many cases, when people join the workforce, they are kept from maturing by the management practices utilized in their organizations"

Chris Agyris proposes a model of the workplace maturity that combines the stage and trait approaches. His model, summarized in table 2 below, focuses exclusively on people in an organizational setting. According to Argyris, an individual\u2019s personality develops from immature to mature along seven basic dimensions.

Argyris suggests that as people gain experience and self-confidence in their jobs, they tend to move from the immature to the mature end of each dimension. Thus, they move from passive to active, from having short-term perspectives to developing long-term perspectives, and so forth. Unfortunately, Argyris contends, organizations and leadership are typically designed to foster and reward immaturity and to stifle and punish maturity. If he is correct, then a basic conflict exists between people and the organizations in which they work.

It is easy to apply this theory to many circumstances outside the workplace. Families in which parents are either over-protective or, on the other extreme, do not protect their children at all may have offspring who are immature and have trouble forming long-term relationships. Governments with strong central authority where people have little personal freedom usually have citizens who are dependent financially and psychologically. Schools where rigid rules are more important than the free flow of ideas will probably graduate students with narrow views and lack of creativity. It is obvious that human beings flourish only when they are in an environment with trust, support and independence.