Immunity to Change Quotes

“We uncovered a phenomenon we call “the immunity to change,” a heretofore hidden dynamic that actively (and brilliantly) prevents us from changing because of its devotion to preserving our existing way of making meaning.”
― Robert Kegan, Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock the Potential in Yourself and Your Organization

“We all know that change is hard, but we don’t know enough about why it is so hard and what we can do about it.”
― Robert Kegan, Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock the Potential in Yourself and Your Organization

“If you have wanted to lose ten pounds for ten years and a diet finally helps you do it, you might well assume you have accomplished your goal. But your goal actually isn’t to lose ten pounds. Many people (even you?) have lost ten pounds many times! The goal is to lose ten pounds and keep the weight off. Dieting doesn’t lead to weight loss that endures. For this we must join a change in behavior with a change in the way we think and feel—and in order to change the way we think and feel, we need to change our mindsets. When we are working on truly adaptive goals—ones that require us to develop our mindsets—we must continually convert what we learn from behavioral changes into changes in our mindsets.”
― Robert Kegan, Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock the Potential in Yourself and Your Organization

“But reflection without action is ultimately as unproductive as action without reflection.”
― Robert Kegan, Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock the Potential in Yourself and Your Organization

“What Cathy took from her rejection experience was self-doubt. Until this current traumatic hospitalization, Cathy hadn’t realized the fear she was carrying around, how burdened she was by it, and how that fear kept her in a mode where she had to continuously prove her value to others and herself.”
― Robert Kegan, Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock the Potential in Yourself and Your Organization

“The problem is the inability to close the gap between what we genuinely, even passionately, want and what we are actually able to do.”
― Robert Kegan, Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock the Potential in Yourself and Your Organization

“At the simplest level, any particular expression of the immunity to change provides us a picture of how we are systematically working against the very goal we genuinely want to achieve.”
― Robert Kegan, Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock the Potential in Yourself and Your Organization

“They all succeed at changing both their mindset (the meaning-making system that shapes thoughts and feelings) and their behavior; rather than changing only mindset or behavior, and hoping the other will eventually follow. • They all become keen and focused observers of their own thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, and they learn to use these as information. They see the agenda that is driving them, not just the agenda they are driving. • Changes to their mindsets are always in the direction of seeing and feeling more possibilities: Spaces people had previously thought they could not or should not enter (because they were out of reach or too dangerous) are now fully accessible. • They take focused risks and build a new set of muscles and metrics around assumptions based on actual, rather than imagined, data about the consequences of their new actions. Their anxiety around the initial adaptive challenge is reduced, if not eliminated, while their experiences of pleasure significantly increase. • They experience increased mastery, more options, wider control, and greater degrees of freedom. They make progress on, or even accomplish, their column 1 commitment, and, more often than not, their accomplishments extend considerably beyond the initial aspiration. Because they have developed new mental capabilities—not just a new solution to a single problem—they can bring these capabilities to other challenges and other venues, in their work and in their personal lives.”
― Robert Kegan, Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock the Potential in Yourself and Your Organization

“Instead of regarding them as things that just need to go away, we look at the behaviors as a precious resource, valuable information that can be mined to develop a more satisfying picture of what may really be happening. Another”
― Robert Kegan, Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock the Potential in Yourself and Your Organization

“How do we help people (whether individuals or groups) to make their third column commitments visible? We begin by surfacing the biggest fears that arise in considering doing the opposite of any or all of the second-column behaviors. In”
― Robert Kegan, Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock the Potential in Yourself and Your Organization

“• Respect for the importance of the other person’s role in producing high-quality outcomes • Belief in the other’s ability (competence) and willingness to fulfill his or her formal role responsibilities • Care about the other professionally and personally • Consistency between what people”
― Robert Kegan, Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock the Potential in Yourself and Your Organization

“do to make my setting the most fertile ground in the world for the growth of talent?”
― Robert Kegan, Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock the Potential in Yourself and Your Organization

“A good column 3 entry also shows how column 2 behaviors productively accomplish some form of self-protection (while simultaneously working against the initial commitment).”
― Robert Kegan, Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock the Potential in Yourself and Your Organization

“more than we understand, most people deal constantly with fear. “I’m not afraid,” we know you are saying to yourself right now. “I feel fine.” And you are right. You do not feel your fear. The reason you do not is because you are dealing with it. Though you are not aware of it, you have created a very effective anxiety-management system, and that system is what we call the immunity to change.”
― Robert Kegan, Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock the Potential in Yourself and Your Organization