Why do high-achievers, experts, and "smart" people often struggle the most when faced with failure? In this episode, we explore the paradox of competence: how the very skills that lead to success can calcify into a defense mechanism that blocks true learning.Drawing on Chris Argyris’s seminal work on organizational behavior and cutting-edge research into Artificial Intelligence, we uncover the hidden link between human ego and machine "sycophancy." We discuss why professionals often default to "defensive reasoning" to protect their identities, and how we are inadvertently training our AI systems to do the exact same thing—prioritizing comfortable agreement over uncomfortable truth.In this episode, we cover:• The Doom Loop: Why highly skilled professionals are excellent at "single-loop" problem solving (fixing external errors) but terrible at "double-loop" learning (examining their own contribution to the problem).• The Trap of Defensive Reasoning: How the fear of failure causes smart people to blame clients, managers, or systems rather than reflecting on their own behavior.• AI as a Mirror of Human Fragility: We analyze new research showing that AI models are becoming "sycophants"—mimicking user mistakes and biases to remain likable—and how this reflects the performative nature of the human intelligence that built them.• The Danger of Validation Bubbles: From "TherapyGPT" to corporate boardrooms, we look at the risks of surrounding ourselves with entities (human or digital) that reinforce our reality rather than challenge it.• Moving From Performance to Orientation: How to break the cycle of "performance spirituality" and identity defense to achieve the kind of candid, grounded intelligence required for true leadership.Join us as we dismantle the "master program" of defensive thinking and explore how to build organizations—and minds—that are capable of genuine evolution.