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 will be able to follow through successfully. Desire and motivation aren't enough: even when it's literally a matter of life or death, the ability to change remains maddeningly elusive. Given that the status quo is so potent, how can we change ourselves and our organizations?
The Immunity to Change approach, developed over 30 years of study by Harvard researchers, Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey, is specifically designed to help individuals, work team and organizations to actually close the gap between what they genuinely intend to do and what they are actually able to bring about. It shows how individual beliefs--along with the collective mind-sets in organizations--combine to create a natural but powerful immunity to change. By working on the mindset level instead of the goal level, it allows people and organizations to unlock their potential and finally move forward.
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The process starts by a novel journey that will enable individuals and teams to accomplish specific personal improvements which are very important to them, but have proven resistant to prior efforts. Not only does it allow them to set a diagnosis and be able to see the internal mechanisms that perpetuate a current mindset, but it does help them transcend their limitations and see the path towards overturning their immunity to change.
Resources:
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TED Talk An evening with Robert Keegan and Immunity to Change: Click here
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Keynote presentation by Lise Lahey: seeing and overcoming the Immunity to Change: Click here
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"The real reason people won't change", Harvard Business Review, from the November 2001 issue