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Robert Kegan

Lisa Laskow Lahey

Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock Potential in Yourself and Your Organization (Leadership for the Common Good) Hardcover – February 1, 2009

by Robert Kegan (Author)

477 ratings

Part of: Leadership for the Common Good (7 books)

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Unlock your potential and finally move forward.

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?

In Immunity to Change, authors Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey show how our individual beliefs--along with the collective mind-sets in our organizations--combine to create a natural but powerful immunity to change. By revealing how this mechanism holds us back, Kegan and Lahey give us the keys to unlock our potential and finally move forward. And by pinpointing and uprooting our own immunities to change, we can bring our organizations forward with us.

This persuasive and practical book, filled with hands-on diagnostics and compelling case studies, delivers the tools you need to overcome the forces of inertia and transform your life and your work.

Print length

340 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Harvard Business School Press
Publication date

February 1, 2009
Dimensions

6.5 x 1.3 x 9.5 inches
ISBN-10

9781422117361
ISBN-13

978-1422117361
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From the Publisher

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey, coauthors of How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work, have been research and practice collaborators for twenty-five years. Kegan is the William and Miriam Meehan Professor in Adult Learning and Professional Development at Harvard University's Graduate School of Education. Lahey is the Associate Director of Harvard's Change Leadership Group and a founding principal of Minds at Work, a leadership-learning professional services firm.

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Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 1422117367
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harvard Business School Press; 1st edition (February 1, 2009)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 340 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9781422117361
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1422117361
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.54 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.5 x 1.3 x 9.5 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #23,438 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #402 in Business Processes & Infrastructure
- #560 in Leadership & Motivation

Customer Reviews:
477 ratings

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Robert Kegan

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Dr. Robert Kegan is the Meehan Professor of Adult Learning and Professional Development at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education. The recipient of numerous honorary degrees and awards, his thirty years of research and writing on adult development have contributed to the recognition that ongoing psychological development after adolescence is at once possible and necessary to meet the demands of modern life. His seminal books, The Evolving Self and In Over Our Heads, have been published in several languages throughout the world. Dr. Lisa Lahey leads the Personal Mastery component of a path-breaking new doctoral program at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education, designed to produce the public-sector equivalent of the “turnaround specialist.” A developmental psychologist and educator, and coauthor of Change Leadership, she led the research team that created the developmental diagnostic, now used around the world, for assessing adult meaning-systems.

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2 star		3%
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Interesting ideas in a too verbose package

Reviewed in the United States on May 30, 2019

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Immunity to change is an interesting book. At times, the book truly made me think and look at people, change, and myself from a different perspective. However, at other times, the book went on and on and I wanted it to stop as I felt I wasn't getting a lot of value out of it anymore.

Immunity to change is about the reason why much personal change fails and what we can do about that. You might have a change goal and create certain actions towards that goal. But how often do you follow these actions and achieve your goal. Many people do not. Why? According to Kegan and Laskow Lahey this is because we have an "immune system". We unknowingly counter the actions because they make us feel unsafe. They make us feel unsafe because of some assumptions we have about ourselves and the world. In order to be more effective in improving ourselves, we'll need not to create more goals and actions but instead challenge these assumptions. How to do that, that is what Immunity to Change is about.

The books consists of three parts, each around three to four chapter. The first chapter explores the dynamic mentioned above, the dynamic of deep-routed assumptions that cause us to counter actions that we would like to take and how this often leads to not following up on our intentions. The second part of the book contains stories of people who use the tools in this book, especially the immunity X-Ray. The third part explains how you can use these tools to explore your immune system and decide whether that is how you want to be and behave. It also clarifies how you can use these tools in groups.

All in all, I liked the idea of an immune system and it makes a lot of sense. Using maps, called X-Rays, to explore your own assumptions also made sense. But the book became so verbose at times that it felt to me the concepts were buried deep between the words. At these times, some of the stories and some of the personal explanations I had trouble not to put the book aside. I still managed to finish it... but did end up wondering if it needed this much pages.

Would I recommend the book? I've been thinking about that quite a lot and I think I wouldn't recommend it to most people. I'm not sure most people would get a lot out of the book. For the people truly curios about how people sabotage their own improvements, this books potentially has some big insights. All in all, three stars.

27 people found this helpful

Helpful

Kagehyo6

A Psychological Perspective to Leadership Challenges

Reviewed in the United States on August 9, 2016

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Immunity to Change is not so much a book about resisting change as it is a book of one's identity. The authors' claim is that the reason we are resistant to change is because change challenges one's current identity and that going through an identity crisis part of growing in leadership. The evidence backing this theory is sound and comes from 20+ years of study. The thesis statement supports this summary of the book, "The problem is the inability to close the gap between what we genuinely, even passionately, want and what we are actually able to do. Closing this gap is a central learning problem of the twenty-first century." The problem is not a lack of willingness, but a lack of awareness and methodology to overcoming this immunity to change.

The writing style starts off, in the first chapter, as very much a journal article type format with numbers and charts and academic language throughout. As the book progresses, the narratives become more frequent and with individual case studies rather than overarching generalizations. The author does well in sharing only what is relevant to the text with his narrations and saving the rest of the story for the appropriate context later in the book. It reads much like Influencer or Crucial Conversations in that regard. I, personally, felt that the stories just may have been a bit too long at some points with the subject matter being too little.

In sharing the real-life case studies, the authors well present their thesis to identifying and overcoming adaptive (see adaptive vs. technical) challenges. By presenting these case studies, the authors demonstrate that these are not just theories but are very real and very valid methods to creating change not just in one's own identity, but entire corporations as well. These case studies range from the common man to the corporate executive and her peer group. Furthermore, the facts and statistics that are associated to these leadership challenges are well documented and displayed throughout the book.

In conclusion, a person or organization that needs help tackling challenges that have been frustratingly unsuccessful should check this book out. It goes beyond just telling a person to act this way and actually helps one to readjust his or her identity. Also, the knowledge in this book will aid in recognizing what challenges are technical and what challenges are adaptive, and how to appropriate the solutions.

42 people found this helpful

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Paul Duba

Knowledge you can use for breakthrough performance

Reviewed in the United States on January 13, 2018

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Immunity to Change is very powerful for the space that one must explore on the way to powerful leadership practices. The “subject-object relationship” is vital to understanding how a given mindset “works” for us to create ease in making sense of things, while conveniently affording us a perspective that takes in the picture of a world from which our worst fears have been taken, compartmentalized, and hidden in plain sight. Powerfully useful. The immunity to change.

See pp. 1-60, an excellent summary of the stages of adult human consciousness. Especially, pp. 47-53 focuses on the "subject-object" dynamics that stand at the crossroads of growth for leadership effectiveness.

The rest of the book illustrates (with relevant examples) an efficient method for uncovering hidden assumptions, fears that hold us in one mindset, with which we must make peace before we can make good on our intention for creating greater effectiveness in our lives.

8 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Mark

Improving Leadership or Life Changing?

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 8, 2011

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Immunity to Change is a rare gem of a book in the leadership field with an Immunity Diagnostic tool that creates profound personal insight and growth in a short space of time. As the authors state the emphasis of this book is more toward development than leadership techniques or theories and I had not expected to find such a personally challenging book in academia and less so the business arena. The diagnostic, which helps the individual, team and organisation become more aware of their repeated behaviours, is closer to personal development albeit with business based language. With similarities to their colleague Heifitz's Adaptive Leadership ideas we are effectively asked to 'get on our own balcony' and see our own repeated thoughts, behaviours and the impact these have. While we may think these aspects of ourselves (for example the need for control or approval) are well hidden they are in practice easy for those around us to see. Bringing these, often self imposed, limitations to consciousness is the art of this book.

Using the concepts in this book: Rarely have I experienced the thoughtful silence that falls over a group when using the Immunity Diagnostic in training and development sessions. As participants consider the conflict between what they claim to believe in and what they actually do many 'ah ha' moments occur. Four seemingly straightforward questions cut straight to the heart of the variance in out current level of thinking. The diagnostic allows us to identify the 'competing commitment' - or why we behave in ways that undermine what we say we want to achieve. Having identified the competing commitment it's a short step to exposing the assumption we make about how the world works, an assumption which may be self limiting. The book also offers a sound method for observing, moving beyond assumptions and testing new thinking and behaviours.

Links to personal development: There is a remarkable similarity between the material presented here and the coaching concepts of identifying limiting beliefs and reframing them. Participants using the diagnostic have commented that this feels like self coaching. Even more surprising is how closely related to Byron Katie's thework (as described in the book Loving What Is) this material is. Although based in different fields both systems ask us to examine our thinking and how differently we might behave if we question the assumptions behind our thoughts.

An enlightening yet practical take on leadership, potentially life changing when applied with personal honesty.

22 people found this helpful

Thomas

good, in depth resource.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 14, 2019

Verified Purchase

This is an important resource for understanding what inhibits people from making changes to their behaviour. Kegan and Lahey lay out their research and the models they have developed to help people and trainers/coaches in delivering sustainable behavioural change. A little dense at times, people unfamiliar with development may struggle a little with the academic nature of the content.

3 people found this helpful

Pete B.

Absolutely marvellous

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 21, 2011

Verified Purchase

I can't really fault this book - except to say that some of the same material is covered in different ways in an earlier book: How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work: Seven Languages for Transformation .

The whole concept is great - that we can only really change our organisations if we are prepared to step up and change ourselves first.

And the book then gives really practical advice on how to do that.

Simply loved it.

6 people found this helpful

IRL

Fantastic Read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 21, 2020

Verified Purchase

An essential guide to personal and organisational change....a must-read for anyone seeking growth and self-development.

One person found this helpful

Chouey

A gift of a read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on October 22, 2018

Verified Purchase

I thoroughly enjoyed this read. It’s a practical way to go deep into resistance to change. The authors really know their craft.

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