The Complete Guide to Overcoming Immunity to Change
Step 1: from Complaints to Commitments
Most stuck-ness in organisational life can be spotted in a very common form of organisational language – the complaint.
It is so common that it is almost a default mode of communicating in many businesses, so common that it does not even get recognised as a complaint, it is simply understood as describing a situation, or a person’s opinion, or judgement.
Why should I do this?
Shifting the extremely common pattern of having a ‘vent, bitch, moan or whinge’, to a positive-framed statement about what you are committed to achieving or receiving, is the first step in shifting your mindset from ‘maintaining the status quo’, to ‘moving yourself and the organisation forward’
| What I don't like... | What I want... |
|---|---|
| Easily and reflexively produced, widespread | Relatively rare unless explicitly intended |
| Explicitly expresses what we can’t stand | Explicitly expresses what we stand for |
| Leaves the speaker feeling like a whiny or cynical person | Leaves the speaker feeling like a person filled with conviction and hope |
| Generates frustration and impotence | Generates vitalising energy |
| Sees complaint as a signal of what’s wrong | Sees complaint as a signal of someone cares about |
| Non-transformational, rarely goes anywhere beyond letting off steam and winning allies to negative characterisations | Transformational; anchors principle-oriented, purpose-directed work |
Part A: What I don’t like...
What sort of things – if they were to happen more frequently in your work setting – would you experience as being more supportive of your ongoing development/ performance at work?
What is bothering you at work? What thing, if it were to happen less frequently, or never at all, would make you much happier?
What is a common complaint that you have in your workplace?
Examples:
- To tell you the truth, what I need here is one or two ‘Me’s’ working for me the way I work for my boss. That would be the biggest support. I simply do not have the time to get what I need to get done let alone what I want to get done. I want to be able to thrive, not just survive!
- No one around here really says what they mean. There is so much talking behind other people’s backs. No one says to your face what they think.
- I’d be more supported if I did not have to make the decisions for everyone all the time. Half the people who work for me don’t seem to be able to make any decisions. I’m constantly involved. I don’t have the time to do things that I want to do because I’m always doing their stuff for them.
Now write down something that is relevant to you, something that is an irritant, or that has or is occurring in the workplace that is stopping you from achieving what you need to.
Don’t edit your response and do not make it a reasonable/ rational situation. We encourage you to be real, to have a good whinge.
Part B: What I want instead...?
In every complaint there is the power of transformation; in every complaint is a commitment to something that you are not receiving. You would not complain if you did not care.
Part B of this first step is about naming the thing that you want but that you are not getting, the thing that is at the heart of your complaint. This is what you are committed to, this should be the 'what' that you want.
This commitment should be one that you genuinely do hold, not feel as though you should, or one day aspire to, but hold now. It should feel congruent, it should feel right. This commitment will also not be fully realised at the moment.
This commitment does not negate the complaint or make anything shameful or disagreeable about the complaint. It does not make a judgement on the complaint. It honours the complaint and invites you to follow the forward energy in it. It is hopeful.
It expresses ‘what you stand for’, not ‘what you cannot stand’. It generates hope and energy, and mobilisation. Discovering and sharing your commitment is relatively rare (vs. the commonness of complaint). A commitment is a signal about what you care about - not what is wrong.
This commitment should be one that you genuinely do hold, not feel as though you should, or one day aspire to, but hold now. It should feel congruent, it should feel right. This commitment will also not be fully realised at the moment.
This commitment does not negate the complaint or make anything shameful or disagreeable about the complaint. It does not make a judgement on the complaint. It honours the complaint and invites you to follow the forward energy in it. It is hopeful.
It expresses ‘what you stand for’, not ‘what you cannot stand’. It generates hope and energy, and mobilisation. Discovering and sharing your commitment is relatively rare (vs. the commonness of complaint). A commitment is a signal about what you care about - not what is wrong.
What commitments or convictions do you hold that are implied in your Part A?
- What are you passionate about?
- What do you want that you are not getting?
Your statement will begin with the words: “So I am committed to the value or importance of…
Examples:
- To tell you the truth, what I need here is one or two ‘me’s’ working for me the way I work for my boss. That would be the biggest support. I simply do not have the time to get what I need to get done let alone what I want to get done. I want to be able to thrive, not just survive! So, I am committed to the value of securing sufficient resources and additional personnel.
- No one around here really says what they mean. There is so much talking behind other people’s backs. No one says to your face what they think. We don’t go to the person we have the issue with… So, I am committed to the value of more open and direct communication at work
- I'd be more supported if I did not have to make the decisions for everyone all the time. Half the people who work for me don't seem able to make any decisions. I'm constantly involved. I don't have the time to do things that I want to do because I am always doing their stuff for them. So, I am committed to the value of supporting my staff to exercise more individual initiative.
So write down your response to part B, what is it that you are committed to?
What do you want that you are not getting?
What is the positive, generative gem buried in your complaint?
What do you want that you are not getting?
What is the positive, generative gem buried in your complaint?
Step 2: from blame to personal responsibility
This step is about personal responsibility for ourselves and explicitly counters the (again common) temptation of judging and blaming others.
This is the reflective exercise that assists individuals to be aware of themselves and the impact they are having on others and on the systems of which they are a part.
This step is about your part – your 50% in terms of how you are dealing with your situation/ issue.
The key question here is: What are you doing or not doing that is keeping your commitment from being more fully realised?
We are not saying here that the situation has not been initiated or stymied by external factors, other people or other parts of your organisational systems.
This is not about anything being your fault or suggesting that you aren’t doing anything at all. It is not about beating yourself up or blaming yourself.
However, there are no situations in adult life where you do not have control and therefore responsibility for your response; this is about you taking personal response-ability.
This is about transformation – and all transformation begins with you.
| Blame | Personal Responsibility |
|---|---|
| Easily and reflexively produced and widespread; comfortable to express | Relatively rare, in an ongoing way, unless explicitly intended; uncomfortable to express |
| Holds the other person responsible for gaps between committed intentions and reality | Expresses specific behaviours we personally engage in and fail to engage in that contribute to gaps |
| Frequently generates frustration, alienation, and impotence in speaker | Draws on the momentum of our commitments |
| Frequently generates defensiveness in others | Frequently generates productive conversation about both parties’ contributions to gap |
| Non-transformational; rarely goes anywhere; deflects our attention to places where we have little or no direct influence | Transformational; directs our attention to places where we have maximum influence |
| At best, raises questions only for others | Raises questions for oneself |
Examples:
- To tell you the truth, what I need here is one or two ‘me’s’ working for me the way I work for my boss. That would be the biggest support. I simply do not have the time to get what I need to get done let alone what I want to get done. I want to be able to thrive, not just survive! So I am committed to the value of securing sufficient resources and additional personnel… but what I am not doing is saying ‘No’; I don’t or can’t say no to my boss.
- No one around here really says what they mean. There is so much talking behind other people’s backs. No one says to your face what they think. We don’t go to the person we have the issue with… So I am committed to the value of more open and direct communication at work… but when I hear people at work talking behind each other’s back, I don’t speak up. I collude with their behaviour by staying silent…
- I’d be more supported if I did not have to make the decisions for everyone all the time. Half the people who work for me don’t seem to be able to make any decisions. I’m constantly involved. I don’t have the time to do things that I want to do because I’m always doing their stuff for them. So I am committed to the value of supporting my staff to exercise more individual initiative… but when my team ask me to get involved, I do, I don’t refuse to take over; and I don’t delegate very much; and I am often willing to be drawn into situations or problems and don’t refer to the person who is actually in charge of that area.
Step 3: from broken Promises to Competing Commitments
This step is about a realistic appraisal of ourselves, our situation and the ‘double binds’ we can sometimes find ourselves in. This is about understanding that we are desiring some vision for the organisational future, but at the same time we are wanting to protect ourselves from potential embarrassment, negative consequences of failure, loss of reputation or relationship or other material consequences.
This competing commitment will always be about protecting ourselves and it will be very strong. We know this competing commitment is very strong because it keeps us stuck and prevents us from getting what we really want.
Moreover, this competing commitment is a part of ourselves that typically we are not very proud of. It is the part of us that is fearful and is being driven by our ‘amygdale-hijacked’’ innate reactive and self-protective capacity. This is our particular flavour of ‘fight, flight or freeze’.
Having the capacity to protect ourselves is a good thing. Without it, literally, we would not have survived infancy let alone adult organisational life. However, too much of a good thing is not good. A necessary capability that is over-played becomes a liability.
These competing commitments are often indicated by 360-degree feedback instruments; other people see and feel what you are doing, often before and better than you do yourself. In the TLC, these will sit under your extensions in the reactive dimensions, in the LSI, these will sit under your Passive-Defensive or Aggressive-defensive behaviour extensions. These extensions will give you hints about how you particularly move to protect yourself.
This step gets you to consider the self-protection aspect to which you are committed.
When you look at what you are doing or not doing (Day 2) and consider its opposite, that is, not doing it, or doing it, can you sense anything even vaguely like a fear or discomfort?
How does your action or inaction serve you? What is the pay-off for you of keeping things as they are?
What are you committed to keeping yourself safe from, or keeping from happening?
To articulate this part of your immunity to change as a competing commitment (as opposed to your fear), rather than imagining the consequence of your different action with dread, frame-up this fear as an active commitment of yours; that is, what are you committed to create for yourself, i.e. to keep the thing you are afraid of, from happening...
| Contrite Promises | Competing Commitments |
|---|---|
| Expresses sincere and genuine intentions | Expresses genuinely held countervailing commitments |
| Creates wishes and hopes for the future | Creates an inner contradiction or map of an immune system |
| But contains little power | Contains enormous (locked up) power |
| Intent is to eliminate or reduce the hindering, problematic behaviour | Intent is to identify the source of that behaviour |
| The problematic behaviour is frequently regarded as a sign of weakness, or shameful ineffectiveness | Identifies a commitment to self-protection on behalf of which the problematic behaviour is effective, consistent, faithful, even brilliant |
| Assumes that eliminating the problematic behaviour will lead to the accomplishment of commitments or goals | Recognizes that merely trying to alter problematic behaviour is unlikely to accomplish goals |
| Frequently attributes less effective change to other people, unanticipated obstacles, or insufficient self-control | Recognises the complex, contradictory nature of one’s own intention |
| Non-transformational; rarely leads to significant change despite sincere intentions | Transformational; paradoxically increases the possibility of significant change by making clear the immune system that makes change so difficult |
Tips
When you come up with your competing commitment, you might feel as though this is something you thought you had dealt with years ago; this is very common, we all end up cycling through our patterns of thinking, feeling and behaving again and again. While this probably will not make you feel very powerful, strong or effective, you are on the right track!
If what you have come up with has a somewhat ‘noble’ ring to it, you have somewhat slipped off the rails; this is about how you are protecting yourself... to stop you from getting what you want, this other commitment must be pretty powerful; generally we only stop ourselves from what we want if we are concerned for our own safety.
This is our immunity to change. If it sounds noble and positive, you have not gone far enough; explore it further (e.g., what would happen if the department you are committed to making really successful… failed)
If what you have come up with has a somewhat ‘noble’ ring to it, you have somewhat slipped off the rails; this is about how you are protecting yourself... to stop you from getting what you want, this other commitment must be pretty powerful; generally we only stop ourselves from what we want if we are concerned for our own safety.
This is our immunity to change. If it sounds noble and positive, you have not gone far enough; explore it further (e.g., what would happen if the department you are committed to making really successful… failed)
Examples:
- To tell you the truth, what I need here is one or two ‘Me’s’ working for me the way I work for my boss. That would be the biggest support. I simply do not have the time to get what I need to get done let alone what I want to get done. I want to be able to thrive, not just survive! So I am committed to the value of securing sufficient resources and additional personnel… but what I am not doing is saying ‘No’; I don’t or can’t say no to my boss…
….because if I say ‘No’, I will get into a conflict with her... and I am also committed to avoiding conflict at all costs
- No one around here really says what they mean. There is so much talking behind other people’s backs. No one says to your face what they think. We don’t go to the person we have the issue with… So I am committed to the value of more open and direct communication at work… but when I hear people at work talking behind each other’s back, I don’t speak up. I collude with their behaviour by staying silent……..because if I did, people would feel uncomfortable around me and I would be seen as holier than thou…… and I am committed to being liked
- I’d be more supported if I did not have to make the decisions for everyone all the time. Half the people who work for me don’t seem to be able to make any decisions. I’m constantly involved. I don’t have the time to do things that I want to do because I’m always doing their stuff for them. So I am committed to the value of supporting my staff to exercise more individual initiative…. But when my team ask me to get involved, I do, I don’t refuse to take over; and I don’t delegate very much; and I am often willing to be drawn into situations or problems and don’t refer to the person who is actually in charge of that area….. But if I did not get involved, the quality will drop and I will be seen as a failure. I am also committed to not being discovered as the failure I fear I might be
Step 4: From Assumptions that Hold You, to Assumptions You Hold
Underneath our competing commitment is a (generally implicit or unconscious) belief(s) that you carry around with you about yourself and/ or the world around you.
Generally these big assumptions were true at one stage but now might no longer be true and also might not be serving you very well.
Often our assumptions and beliefs sit in the neural connections of our brain well below the conscious, linguistic centres of the neo-cortex, and therefore we can be unaware of many of them. We experience our assumptions as the filters through which we see and feel the world, they are our rose-tinted or nightshade, or blood-hued spectacles. Many of our big assumptions are set down early in our lives and most are not consciously registered as assumptions; we merely know them as ‘the Truth’. As a parable states, ‘fish do not know they are in water, they think they are flying...’
What do you imagine would happen if what you wrote in Step 3 came to pass? What would happen if your fear were realised?
Generally these big assumptions were true at one stage but now might no longer be true and also might not be serving you very well.
Often our assumptions and beliefs sit in the neural connections of our brain well below the conscious, linguistic centres of the neo-cortex, and therefore we can be unaware of many of them. We experience our assumptions as the filters through which we see and feel the world, they are our rose-tinted or nightshade, or blood-hued spectacles. Many of our big assumptions are set down early in our lives and most are not consciously registered as assumptions; we merely know them as ‘the Truth’. As a parable states, ‘fish do not know they are in water, they think they are flying...’
What do you imagine would happen if what you wrote in Step 3 came to pass? What would happen if your fear were realised?
This is a clue to discovering the big assumption that sits under your complaint and keeps you immobilised. This step names an inner contradiction that we live in and compose. It is a map of our own captivating equilibrium. It is our immune system preventing change.
| Big Assumptions that Hold Us | Assumptions We Hold |
|---|---|
| Automatically produced, without intention or awareness (the meanings to which we are subject) | Produced only with difficulty, creating space or distance between self and one’s meanings (the meanings we can relate to as an object) |
| Assumption inhabited as truths | Assumptions taken as assumptions |
| Creates a sense of certainty that one’s perspective is reality | Creates valuable doubt, the opportunity to question, explore, test, one’s assumption |
| Anchors and sustains our immune system [that prevents change] | Creates a pivotal lever for disturbing our immunity to change |
| Names the terms by which we would understand our universe to be catastrophically disturbed or violated (our ‘Temple of Doom’) | Makes the catastrophic consequences a proposition available for testing |
| Non-transformational; maintains the world as we have been constructing it | Transformational; changes the world and our sense of possibilities within it |
Examples:
- To tell you the truth, what I need here is one or two ‘me’s’ working for me the way I work for my boss. That would be the biggest support. I simply do not have the time to get what I need to get done let alone what I want to get done. I want to be able to thrive, not just survive! So I am committed to the value of securing sufficient resources and additional personnel… but what I am not doing is saying ‘No’; I don’t or can’t say no to my boss… if I say ‘No’ I will get into a conflict... and if I get into conflict, I will get uncontrollably angry and hurt people
- No one around here really says what they mean. There is so much talking behind other people’s backs. No one says to your face what they think. We don’t go to the person we have the issue with… So I am committed to the value of more open and direct communication at work… but when I hear people at work talking behind each other’s back, I don’t speak up. I collude with their behaviour by staying silent….because if I did speak up, people would feel uncomfortable around me and I would be seen as holier than thou, and I am committed to being liked... and if I were not liked, then I will feel alone and that will feel like death
- I’d be more supported if I did not have to make the decisions for everyone all the time. I’m constantly involved. So I am committed to the value of supporting my staff to exercise more individual initiative…. But when my team ask me to get involved, I do, I don’t refuse to take over; and I am often willing to be drawn into situations or problems and don’t refer to the person who is actually in charge of that area ... But if I did not get involved, the quality will drop and I will be seen as a failure. I am also committed to not being discovered as the failure I fear I might be... and if I am seen as a failure I will lose everything
Step 5: Conceiving and Committing to Small Experiments to Test Your Assumptions
Understanding your immunity to change can be a life-changing experience for many people. Such awareness has often been reported as a pivotal ‘AHA’ moment, after which people feel and behave fundamentally differently, that somehow the awareness alone was enough to shift the patterns they were in that kept them immobilised and frustrated, ineffective in their organisational life.
Sometimes too, this initial expanded understanding fades, and a more familiar pattern of feeling frustrated and blocked returns, feelings of personal effectiveness decreasing over time. The previous pattern may be reasserting itself.
So for these others, mere awareness may not be enough to move them into action, they require a more energetic response to this new knowledge about themselves and how they interact in their worlds.
Still others are not certain that their Big Assumptions are not, in fact, correct. The truth is, not all monsters are imaginary. Psychopathology is alive and well in organisations and often the world is not a safe or happy place.
The practice of conceiving and committing to small, graded experiments to test the assumptions you are (now) holding is the way of moving to mobilisation, to practically applying the insights the Immunity to Change process has revealed.
Sometimes too, this initial expanded understanding fades, and a more familiar pattern of feeling frustrated and blocked returns, feelings of personal effectiveness decreasing over time. The previous pattern may be reasserting itself.
So for these others, mere awareness may not be enough to move them into action, they require a more energetic response to this new knowledge about themselves and how they interact in their worlds.
Still others are not certain that their Big Assumptions are not, in fact, correct. The truth is, not all monsters are imaginary. Psychopathology is alive and well in organisations and often the world is not a safe or happy place.
The practice of conceiving and committing to small, graded experiments to test the assumptions you are (now) holding is the way of moving to mobilisation, to practically applying the insights the Immunity to Change process has revealed.
A series of small graded experiments
A graded experiment is one where you test a small part of the assumption you have about yourself and your place in the world, and what will happen if you don’t think, feel, act or behave as you normally might.
Once you have completed the first small test, and if it resolves itself differently than your expectations, then you can try a further, experiment, with a more powerful person for example, or in a specific work context. This activity is about safely testing the boundaries of your assumption.
You may find that these experiments in fact proceed quite quickly, as the substance of your big assumption proves to be not in fact how the real world is working.
Conversely, you might find that your fear is quite justified, in which case you have a great source of information about the environment you are in. In that case, your next environmental experiment might then be to experiment in a new environment...!
Examples:
- To tell you the truth, what I need here is one or two ‘me’s’ working for me the way I work for my boss. That would be the biggest support. I simply do not have the time to get what I need to get done let alone what I want to get done. I want to be able to thrive, not just survive! So I am committed to the value of securing sufficient resources and additional personnel… but what I am not doing is saying ‘No’; I don’t or can’t say no to my boss… if I say ‘No’ I will get into a conflict... and if I get into conflict, I will get uncontrollably angry and hurt people... 3 possible experiments below
-
- Choose a social or family situation where you are being asked to do something you do not really want to... say ‘No’ in this context... does a conflict result? If it does, how uncontrollable is your anger?
- In a work situation, where a colleague is asking for something, try refusing... what happens there? Again, if a conflict develops, what happens to your emotions? If you get angry, can you do anything in the moment to either express your anger or diffuse it (breathing, counting to ten, ...)
- With your boss, have a conversation about the dynamic that has been frustrating you, your past choices to not say ‘No’ to work and the consequences of this for you and your effectiveness... does a conflict escalate? What does your boss do? What do you do? If your boss gets angry at this, do you have to react with anger?
- No one around here really says what they mean. There is so much talking behind other people’s backs. No one says to your face what they think. We don’t go to the person we have the issue with… So I am committed to the value of more open and direct communication at work… but when I hear people at work talking behind each other’s back, I don’t speak up. I collude with their behaviour by staying silent….because if I did speak up, people would feel uncomfortable around me and I would be seen as holier than thou, and I am committed to being liked... and if I were not liked, then I will feel alone and that will feel like death... 2 possible experiments below
-
- Bring up the concept/ idea of integrity and supportiveness to colleagues and the cost of side-conversations/ triangulation to organisational systems casually, not when someone is engaged in it... what is the reaction to you? if you perceive others are judging you negatively, what is the impact of that on you? are you rendered ‘alone’ and cast out? What happens if that person moves away from you? does it really feel like death?
- When someone is having a whinge to you about someone else, interrupt the conversation and suggest they go talk to that person directly about it. What happens? Do they blame you for anything in this instance?
- Bring up the concept/ idea of integrity and supportiveness to colleagues and the cost of side-conversations/ triangulation to organisational systems casually, not when someone is engaged in it... what is the reaction to you? if you perceive others are judging you negatively, what is the impact of that on you? are you rendered ‘alone’ and cast out? What happens if that person moves away from you? does it really feel like death?
