Overturning Immunity to Change
A recent study showed that when doctors tell heart patients they will die if they don't change their habits, only one in seven is able to follow through successfully. Clearly, desire and motivation aren't enough: even when it's literally a matter of life and death, the ability to change remains maddeningly elusive. Given that the status quo is so powerful, how can we create the changes we need in ourselves and in our organisations?
The Immunity-to-Change™ approach developed by Harvard’s Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey shows how our individual habits and mindsets— along with the collective norms and beliefs in our organisations—combine to create an overwhelming immunity to change. Their approach amounts to nothing less than a radical recasting, conceptually and practically, of the work of improving performance.
Kegan is a ‘Senior Scientific Advisor’ to the Inner Development Goals and is featured in the IDGs introductory video. He maintains that: “We need to make sure, in this initiative, that we are actually equipping people and organisations and large numbers of people with the tools to actually realise those aspirations.”
Kegan and Lahey maintain that the field of leadership development has not attended sufficiently to development. They highlight that in addition to identifying leadership elements and skills we need to attend to the most powerful source of our ability: our capacity to overturn our limitations and blind spots and truly transform ourselves. True development is about transforming your operating system not just adding more files and programmes.
Many, if not most of the changes you face today and will face tomorrow will require something more than incorporating new technical skills into your current mindset...these are "adaptive challenges," and they can only be met by transforming your mindset, by advancing to a more sophisticated stage of mental development. (Kegan & Lahey, 2009, p. 29)
The Immunity-to-Change™ approach was developed as a catalyst for a very deliberate form of development. Applying technical solutions to technical problems and adaptive solutions to adaptive problems is a rich source of increased efficiency; countless financial and human capital resources are wasted when companies repeatedly and fruitlessly try to tackle adaptive challenges through technical means. In the case of adaptive challenges, when leadership development goals cannot be met through skill enhancement or knowledge acquisition, Immunity-to-Change™ coaching is an exceptionally valuable resource.
A study in the Journal of Applied Behavioral Science demonstrated the effectiveness of The Immunity-to-Change™ coaching for leadership development. Forty-five supervisors who engaged in The Immunity-to-Change™ coaching were compared with a group of 25 supervisors from the same company to determine whether coached participants reported more progress on their leadership development goals than did members of the comparison. Extensive analyses revealed that the coached group reported significantly more progress towards their leadership goals than did their comparison group counterparts. Indeed, the comparison group did not significantly increase their goal scores despite their independent efforts to make progress on their goals.
Those frustrated or disappointed with their current change efforts who want guidance in knowing what to do to turn things around often find The Immunity-to-Change™ approach very practical. With "how to" advice, hands-on diagnostics and compelling case studies, The Immunity-to-Change™ approach delivers the tools you need to overcome the forces of inertia and transform your life and your work.
The Immunity-to-Change™ coaching approach has been applied in countries across the world. It has been implemented by a national railway in Europe, an international financial services company and senior partners in the world's leading international strategy consulting firm.
Rodger trained with Kegan and Lahey in Boston and undertook a comprehensive supervision process with them to become a Certified Immunity-to-Change™ Coach and Facilitator. Chellie has also studied and taught this approach. Catalyst Leadership Development offers The Immunity-to-Change™ approach for individual executives, teams and organisations. It can be provided in a personalised 1:1 process, in small-group coaching pods, and in large-scale organization events. This approach helps accomplish long-sought-after behavioural goals by making visible unrecognized “parallel goals” (“counter commitments”) that are producing precisely the behaviours that undermine aspirations. There is a hidden, internal dynamic “protecting” you from the changes you most desire to make; this is what this approach calls the “immune system.”
Individual Executive Coaching
Individual in-depth Immunity to Change™ is tailored to you, your goals, your needs, and your schedule. It provides maximum feedback and accountability. You would meet with Rodger (by phone, Zoom, or face-to-face) during this process, approximately every two to three weeks, for about an hour each time, and you will be expected to do a little “homework” between sessions that should normally take about an hour a week. The usual coaching cycle will help you to:
Identify at least one personal or professional change goal, your specific behaviours that currently impede the accomplishment of the goal, and the assumptions that drive these behaviours.
Envision successful change, with measurable steps toward achieving it.
Learn a methodology for observing how your assumptions impact your interpretation of events, your reactions and the reactions of others.
Learn a methodology for testing personal assumptions and identifying under what specific conditions, if at all, they prove to be true.
Develop more effective behaviours and more productive mental models as a result of realising false assumptions.
Identify specific hooks or triggers that lead to old behaviours and develop strategies for overcoming them.
Coaching in Workshops
The Immunity-to-Change™ approach can be delivered through workshops ranging from one half-day session to several workshops over several months.
The half-day session can be presented as a stand-alone workshop or part of a conference. Participants can be provided with a pre-work exercise to prepare them for the session.
When workshops are presented over several sessions one structure is to have sessions approximately two weeks apart:
The first session usually focuses on completion of the four-column Immunity Map, an interactive exercise through which each participant identifies the assumptions and self-protective personal commitments that undermine his or her leadership goal.
The second session focuses on refining participants' four-column maps and introducing them to a Self-Observation exercise (identifying situations where the self-protecting assumptions appear in their lives) and a Continuum of Progress exercise (envisioning short-term, medium-term and long-term success).
The third session focuses on debriefing the Self-Observation and Continuum of Progress exercises, as well as introducing a biography exercise (tracing participant's assumptions back to their origins).
The fourth session focuses on identifying appropriate tests of participants' self-protective assumptions (these tests are intended to evaluate the validity of the assumptions). Participants run the tests in between the fourth and fifth sessions.
During the fifth and final Immunity-to-Change™ coaching session, participants analyse their results and the insights derived from running the tests.
An Everyone Culture: Becoming A Deliberately Developmental Organisation
In ‘An Everyone Culture: Becoming A Deliberately Developmental Organisation’ Kegan and Lahey teamed up with Andy Fleming and Matthew Miller to offer an account of what they describe as a deliberately developmental organisation (DDO).
They asked: What if companies viewed becoming world-class less as the product of successful recruitment and retention efforts and more as the outcome of a relentless focus on the growth in capabilities-even personal development-of all the people who make up the company? What if a company did everything within its power to create conditions in which individuals could overcome their own internal barriers to change, transcend their blind spots, and see errors and weaknesses as prime opportunities for personal growth?
A DDO is organised around the deceptively simple but radical conviction that organisations will best prosper when they are deeply aligned with people's strongest motive, which is to grow. This means more than consigning "people development" to high-potential leadership-development programs, executive coaching, or once-a-year retreats. Deep alignment means fashioning an organisational culture in which support of people's ongoing development is woven into the daily fabric of working life and visible in the company's regular operations, daily routines, and conversations.
This book dives deeply into the worlds of three leading companies that embody this breakthrough approach and reveals the design principles at the heart of DDOs-from their disciplined, consistent approach to giving feedback, to how they use meetings, to how managers and leaders define their roles differently than in typical companies. The authors then show readers how to build this developmental culture in their own organisations.
‘An Everyone Culture’ will cause you to rethink the basic notion of people-development in organisational life. The article describes how these companies believe that not only is attention to the bottom line and the personal growth of all employees desirable, but also that the two are interdependent. Echoing our view and reflecting our own research and experience over the past 40 years and the raison d'être of Catalyst Leadership Development, the authors maintain that the quests for business excellence and individual fulfilment need not be at odds – they can be combined in such a way that causes each to flourish.
Case Study
Following is a reference from one of Rodger’s Overturning Immunity to Change™ Coaching Clients:
“I wanted to say thank you. I know you can see the progress I have made, and I struggle to articulate how different my life is now for having had that opportunity. No words can describe how much the way I see myself has improved, and how much my confidence has grown. I get comments most days still from people at work and in my personal life who still cannot believe how much I have changed this year. How lucky I was to have been selected to do this with you.
My management style was very effective in getting things done, but far less so for inspiring and motivating my team. I wanted to change my style to that of a true leader - but was struggling to make that change. Immunity-to-Change coaching helped me discover the underlying reasons behind my style, and see my life choices through a completely different lens. When you understand what makes you tick, and how that manifests itself, then you have the tools to make significant change. I am now more relaxed and can enjoy everything I am doing. My peers have noticed the positive change and my team is more engaged. My career path has changed tack, and my newfound confidence is allowing everything to come together. I feel very excited about my future!
The framework this program uses is clear and makes sense - and is so very very effective. I will use this tool for the rest of my days when I need to deal with an issue!
Here is some feedback you can share with new clients you have:
1. This framework will work for anything you want to be different – as long as you WANT to change and put the work in. Only you can change you.
2. If you don’t feel upset or uncomfortable about what it is you want to change you have not got to the nub of the issue.
3. Spend time thinking about this program as you go through it – serious time – it helps you get to the next stage.
4. Each programme step seems hard – but they all make sense when you dig into them and they move you in the right direction.
5. Spend time on your homework to get the best out of the programme – 1-2 hours a week. You want the most benefit possible and committing to the work is worth it.
6. Know that your whole world can be different based on the way you think. Changing your thinking is a slow process – take your time to get it right.
7. No issue is too big for this programme.
I will happily be an advocate for this programme whenever you want one....wishing you all the success possible.
...The power of the Immunity to Change program is the ability to look at yourself in another way, and then BE different.
If you are looking for a happier life - then do this."
Sallie AJ Purser, IBM. Since completing the program Sallie was promoted at IBM from NZ Global Technology Services Operations Leader, to Software Deployment Manager then to Chief Operating Officer and Executive Director.
Please be in touch to explore how we can help you and your organisation to start overturning your immune system today so that you can accomplish your most important change goals.
Immunity to Change is a wonderfully original approach to a familiar problem: why many crucial change efforts fail. It shows how the core problems of resistance to change stem from the critical gaps between what is required and a leader’s own level of development.
-Peter Senge, author of The Fifth Discipline
Rodger with Lisa Lahey and Robert Kegan
