A Fly at my window

I was reading this afternoon, sitting in my favorite spot, in front of the big windows that communicate my living room to the balcony. Suddenly I heard a very irritating noise. It was a fly, trying to make itself penetrate the glass window to get outdoors. I opened the main window and observed its behavior. The fly kept on trying to go through the glass… it kept on flying and hitting the invisible wall on and on and on… I tried to push it into the open door… but it was useless… I just watched as it finally died of exhaustion…

Coincidently, I was reading Chris Argyris' book "Knowledge for Action" that talks about the way we create defensive routines that prevent us from learning and acting effectively inside organizations; looking at the dead fly on the floor and reading about defensive routines … and sadly, the fly behavior became so familiar… Sometimes we know our colleagues are just stuck in front of a window glass and we choose not to say anything because of our defensive routines inside organizations: if I say something I might be obliged to explain my point of view and this might lead me to a vulnerable position; sometimes, the ones hitting the window glass also know it won't get them to the other side, and still, this is what is expected from them, and therefore, this is what they do. And we get pretty efficient at hitting window glasses: we develop ways of alternating efforts so that no one actually dies hitting the glass window… we find out ways of keeping the glass window shining… and we finally forget to make a collective effort to really find out why we hit the invisible wall… we rather convince ourselves that we don't need to go outside… if we stay here, we will be able to control it better…. But unfortunately, when we do this, the life inside of us, just like the fly, ceases to exist…