{"id":2021,"date":"2018-06-18T08:59:56","date_gmt":"2018-06-18T16:59:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nehrlich.com\/blog\/?p=2021"},"modified":"2018-06-18T09:03:39","modified_gmt":"2018-06-18T17:03:39","slug":"immunity-to-change-methodology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nehrlich.com\/blog\/2018\/06\/18\/immunity-to-change-methodology\/","title":{"rendered":"Immunity to Change\u2122 methodology"},"content":{"rendered":"

I attended the facilitator’s workshop for the Immunity to Change\u2122 methodology<\/a> a couple weeks ago, and was surprised how powerful this simple methodology was at uncovering assumptions that hold people back from change. It can drive insights even when done in a perfunctory fashion, as when I did it on my own before the workshop; but when combined with a coach who is empathetic and challenging, it can elicit powerfully moving realizations (as happened for me in my third day at the workshop). I wanted to share a brief overview of this elegant methodology, in part because my last post was partially inspired by it. <\/p>\n

For those that want the official version, you can read the Harvard Business Review article<\/a> written by the creators, Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey, or consult their books Immunity to Change<\/a> or An Everyone Culture<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The methodology grew out of Kegan and Lahey’s observation that people are often committed to changing themselves in some meaningful way, but fail to do so. Most of us subscribe to what they call the “New Year’s Resolution” model of change where we can just decide to be different; this can work for some people in some situations, but often fails because willpower is not enough even if one knows what one needs to do. Kegan and Lahey felt that a lack of willpower didn’t sufficiently explain why people don’t take action towards their improvement goals, and so they researched this phenomenon to come up with alternate models of change that might better explain what they observed. <\/p>\n

Their theory is that people have what they call a Psychological Immune System, which is designed to protect us from unpleasant emotions or situations, much like our physical immune system protects us from diseases. When a potentially unpleasant emotion might arise, our Psychological Immune system kicks in, and steers us quickly and unconsciously away from the situation. If this happens when we are trying to change, it can set up a conflict where our conscious brain wants to change, and our unconscious brain doesn’t want to change; Kegan and Lahey make the analogy to having one foot on the gas pedal, and one foot on the brake pedal, spending a lot of energy going nowhere, which is an apt description for how many of us feel when trying to change ourselves. <\/p>\n

They describe this conflict in terms of hidden, or competing, commitments. We have a conscious commitment to an improvement goal. But our Psychological Immune System has a set of hidden commitments that conflict with the improvement goal. The Immunity to Change\u2122 methodology is a method for discovering those hidden commitments, and then working with them. If we can identify our hidden commitments, then we can notice how they are interfering with our lives, and perhaps loosen them somewhat; this would reduce the braking in the above analogy, allowing forward progress to occur. Note that this is similar to how to deal with the \u201cLimits to Growth\u201d archetype in The Fifth Discipline, where growth can only re-start when the balancing loop countering growth is addressed.<\/p>\n

So how do we find the hidden commitments, when they are well hidden even from ourselves? I love the elegant way that Kegan and Lahey describe to get there.<\/p>\n

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  1. Identify the improvement goal to which we are committed, but are not making progress on.\n
  2. Identify the actual behaviors we are taking that are impeding our progress towards that goal – how are we undermining ourselves?\n
  3. Imagine doing the opposite of those behaviors (i.e. imagine doing what it would take to move towards the goal), and what feelings arise as you imagine that. This is the key step, as this is where people identify worries or anxieties or other “yucky” feelings that they unconsciously want to avoid.\n
  4. Once the worries or anxieties are revealed, lay them out as competing commitments, and investigate any Big Assumptions that are lying behind those competing commitments.<\/ol>\n

    The power of the methodology lies in that third step – identifying what we are avoiding. If we can push deep on our underlying motivations and confront our “yucky” feelings, the methodology will have more power. To take one of my examples, I said I want to be excellent at my job (improvement goal), but I often wait too long to ask for help when stuck, and I often don’t speak up when I see something I don’t agree with (behaviors working against my goal). When I went through what feelings I would have if I do the opposite of my behaviors, it was pretty obvious:<\/p>\n