Why is so hard to start studying regularly, even if we know that we must do that in order to get good results on exams? Why is so hard to start eating better, even if we want to stay healthy and we know all about the virtues of safe food? Why can’t we make time for our family, even if we consider them the most important thing for us? Why is so difficult to make a change, even if we know it is really needed? How can we change ourselves and our organization, when the status quo is so resistant and potent? We all know that making changes is hard. In “Immunity to Change” of Robert Kegan and Lisa laskow Lahey is shown how making changes is so difficult, but also is shown the code how to overcome the resistance to change, by unlocking the potential in ourselves and our organization.
A study, made recently, shows that when doctors tell heart patients that they will die if they don’t change their habits, only one in seven could be able to follow the advices successfully. So, even when it is a matter of life or death, motivation and desire aren’t enough to make us able to change.
Our beliefs, our routine, our individual habits, and mindsets-along with the collective norms combine to create an immunity to change. Even though we have the desire and motivation to change, and real commitments to improvement, we are often stuck in what the authors call “dynamic equilibrium” that prevents change. And there are three problems; first real problem is that there is a gap between what we really or we passionately want and what we are able to do. If we close this gap, we can make the change we need and we want. The second one is that there is a deep pessimism about how much people can change, deep-seated inside of us. And the third problem is we don’t have enough knowing and understanding about human development.
The book has three parts:
Part one: Uncovers the hidden dynamic on the challenge of change and shows a new way to understand the change.
Part two: Overcomes the immunity to change in organizations and teams and shows the value of our approach for individuals, work teams and organizations.
Part three: Focused on us, shows us how to challenge the immunity to change and invites us to try the approach for ourselves.
The reason why organizations fail to make their expected changes is not that they don’t have the desire or the necessary motivation, but of the hidden conflicts on their commitments carried in their goals – their collective immunity to change. There are some examples shown in this book; the school that had as a goal the higher academic results from its students, the administrators and the teachers felt protective and in order to reach their goal they demanded too much from the students, forgetting that they needed to demand more from themselves too. Or the professional services firm that set the goal to create mutual trust and respect between the coworkers and at the same time to a strong desire in the members to be independent and entrepreneur. In order to make the changes they desire, the organizations must firstly uncover and understand these conflicts.
Once these conflicts are uncovered and understood, the organization must change the way it learns, by learning how to learn beyond the existing mindsets. We must not focus only on developing skills, but also we must work on the development of human capacity to learn and grow, passing from the technical learning to the adaptive learning, which requires both head and heart.
So, the good news is that the immunity to change can be destroyed, of course it doesn’t happen overnight, it takes its time.
In this book the authors identify seven attributes of genuine developmental stance:
1. It admits that there is life after adolescence that means that everybody, in every age or stage of his life can change and grow mentally, professionally and develop his skills.
2. It reveals the importance of adaptive learning.
3. It recognizes the individual’s interior motivation to grow and cultivates it
4. It admits that a change in mindsets takes time, because we are talking about human development and cultivation not human engineering.
5. It recognizes that mindsets include thinking and feeling. It means that if we want to change our mindsets we must change both, mind and heart.
6. It recognizes that we must change our mindsets and our behavior, in order to bring the transformation.
7. It provides safety, minimizing the risk inherent in changing their minds; it gives support to the challenge of change.
Taking the challenge to make a change in our own life or in the or in any organization sounds hard. It is hard and it isn’t hard in the same time. With some patience, courage (personal or collective) to take the risk and the necessary desire and motivations you can do every change you wand, at any time. It’s never too late to change or to grow.
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