Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock Potential in Yourself and Your Organization (Leadership for the Common Good)

Brief Description:
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.

Table of Contents:
Preface and Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Part I. Uncovering a Hidden Dynamic in the Challenge of Change -- 1. Reconceiving the Challenge of Change -- 2. Uncovering the Immunity to Change -- 3. We Never Had a Language for It: Engaging the Emotional Life of the Organization -- Part II. Overcoming the Immunity to Change in Organizations, Individuals, and Teams -- 4. Overcoming the Groupwide Immunity to Change: A Collective Approach -- 5. David Doesn't Delegate Overcoming an Individual's Immunity to Change -- 6. Cathy Can't Contain Herself: Overcoming an Individual's Immunity to Change -- 7. The Case of Nascent Pharmaceuticals: Overcoming Individual Immunities to Help a Team Succeed -- Part III. Over to You: Diagnosing and Overcoming Immunities in Yourself and Your Organization -- 8. Unlocking Potential Three Necessary Ingredients -- 9. Diagnosing Your Own Immunity to Change -- 10. Overcoming Your Immunity to Change -- 11. Surfacing Your Collective Immunity to Change -- Conclusion: Growing Your Own, How to Lead So People Develop -- Notes -- Index -- About the Authors.

Biographical Note:

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.