People and organisations resist change in different ways. Harvard University professors Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey have analysed the sources of resistance and explained the methods to overcome them in their book “Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock the Potential in Yourself and Your Organisation.”
Kegan and Lahey start the book by referring to a recent study which showed that when doctors told heart patients they would die if they didn’t change their habits, only one in seven patients was able to follow the changes successfully.
The authors explain that everybody with immunity to change has two types of commitment: visible commitment and hidden commitment. Visible commitment is what we express as our commitment, while the hidden commitment is our inner desires and our assumptions that support these desires. The third element is the behavior that is working against the change. The authors define this as doing, or sometimes not doing, something. The simplest example to illustrate this theory is weight loss. The visible commitment of somebody is to lose weight. The behavior requiring change is overeating or eating when the person isn’t hungry. If the person wants to lose weight, why does he behave in the opposite way? Because there is a hidden commitment. The person may want to be full of energy, may believe that eating is fun or doesn’t give value to being physically attractive.
The authors argue that people cannot change because of their hidden commitments: If we can think and talk about our hidden commitments and supporting assumptions then, we can keep up with our visible commitments.
This book is definitely worth a read.