Organisational defences

7 Obstacles to an efficient learning from experience 10.7.1 Organisational defences 

Deviations or errors, i.e. mismatches between our plans or intentions and the actual outcome, produce opportunities for learning. We distinguish between four different orders of feedback and the associated results of learning from experience. In practice, we notice that many opportunities for learning are lost. This is when the organisation is only able to accomplish first-order feedback, i.e. no long-term effects are produced as a result of the experience. 

Source Argyris, 1992. Reproduced by permission from the author. 

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In exploring the organisational defences, Argyris makes the distinction between single-loop and double-loop learning. Figure 10.9. 

Organisational learning Here we will emphasise aspects of the SHE information system that promote experience exchange and learning. We will also focus on provisions to minimise dysfunctional effects of organisational defences. 

Near accidents are less emotionally charged and are less likely to trigger organisational defences against openness and needs of change. 

We express our thanks to the students with whom we have worked on these subjects and whose results we have used, in particular Herve Borrion, Shirley Coetzee and Michele Vespe, and to the organisations, including the UK Ministry of Defence, the US Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, QinetiQ and its predecessors, BAE SYSTEMS, Thales Sensors and AMS, who have supported the various projects. We also thank Erik De Witte and Herve Borrion for their help in rendering this document into DTj X. 

Electronic Warfare and Radar Division Defence Science and Technology Organisation Edinburgh, SA5100,Australia... 

Cytokines are peptides that are produced and secreted by cells of the immune system. They organise the immune response to invasion by a pathogen by communicating between the different cells. They are synthesised in the immune cells as precursor proteins (pro-proteins) from which a peptide is removed by a proteolytic enzyme to produce the active cytokine, prior to secretion. This enzyme is a serine protease. Perhaps surprisingly, some viruses are capable of synthesising serpins which inhibit this enzyme in the immune cells, so that secretion does not occur and communication and integration of the immune response to the viral infection is lost. This is one of many biochemical mechanisms by which pathogens can reduce or overcome the defence mechanisms of the host (Chapter 17). 

CChem FRSC (UK) Former Director of Materials Defence R D Organisation DRDO House, New Delhi, India email jpa vsnl.com... 

The twentieth century saw the continuation of the company s influence on fireworks, now worldwide, with Roy Brock organising displays during Princess Elizabeth s twenty-first birthday celebrations in South Africa in April 1947 while Christopher Brock directed a centenary display for the city of Dunedin, New Zealand in 1948. The Brock name enjoyed an association with pyrotechnics until well into the second half of the twentieth century, eventually specialising in defence related products such as simulators and smokes. 

Sir Ewen Broadbent, The Military and Government From Macmillan to Heseltine (Basingstoke Macmillan, for Royal United Services Institute, 1988), pp. 19-21 Central Organisation for Defence (Cmnd 476), PP 1957-58, xxi. 501. 

Broadbent, Military and Government, pp.21-7, 216-17 Philip Ziegler, Mountbatten The Official Biography (London Collins, 1985), pp. 608-21 Central Organisation for Defence (Cmnd 2097), PP 1962-63, xxvii. 715. 

Similar defence responses are provoked by other forms of stress (eg, air pollutants, herbicides, cold or drought stress, etc.). Analogous responses were also observed during natural plant senescence. It is a challenging hypothesis that several kinds of stress factors demonstrate a common site of action at the subcellular level (Clijsters et al., 1990) and might accelerate the process of plant senescence (Lee et al., 1976a Van Assche et al., 1990). Its further evaluation, however, needs the continuation of research on senescence processes, stress effects and metal action at several levels of organisation. 

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