Outcomes

By combining the science of human development and agile principles, The Immunity to Change™ Process delivers a vastly different outcome from other approaches because it empowers people to change their mindset underlying their behaviors (what is usually beneath the surface of our awareness).

You will experience a breakthrough discovery called the “immunity to change,” a dynamic that impedes personal and organizational transformation. You will practice a cutting-edge approach to experiencing real, productive change that makes a difference in your life, in your teams, and in your organization.

• Create clear and actionable individual improvement goals

• Improve leadership effectiveness which then creates more effective teams

• Illuminate hidden forces behind change resistance

• Establish a shared language and framework which supports a learning culture

• Increase collaboration across diverse teams

• Alignment of team members with larger organizational change goal

• Improve leadership capacities

Immunity to Change™ can be applied to a wide variety of personal and professional change goals, such as:

• Improving your ability to receive critical feedback

• Delegating in order to move an initiative forward

• Creating a healthier work-life balance

• Having more courageous conversations

• Working more collaboratively within a group

What is Immunity to Change?

Immunity to Change™ is a learning process developed by Harvard University faculty Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey, informed by 30 years of research on adult development and used in organizations throughout the world. It offers an actionable model for transforming our lives and our organizations.

Immunity to Change™ is what happens when we attempt to change, both individually and collectively - a dynamic that impedes personal and organizational transformation, especially during times of transition.

There is a natural response that has a bias towards the status quo, to what we already know, to what is familiar. This resistance to change is often found within teams from different organizational cultures (in mergers and acquisitions, for example). However, this is also found in teams within the same organization - cultures within cultures exist, even in the most seemingly coherent organizations.

When you are trying to bring about change in your organization - even when that change is quite positive and attractive -

there can be a natural push-back that is difficult to overcome.

Why it Matters

Senior leadership teams struggle to lead rapid transformative change even when they are fully committed to the change. When such efforts fall short, they often relate the failure to external factors. This pattern impedes progress because external factors are in constant flux and is not a locus of control for success.

The Big Picture

Change efforts that require a collective change of behaviors, or change of culture often fail because executive teams are unaware of their subconscious self-protecting counter commitments that get in the way of accomplishing their change goals.

The Process

In this workshop, participants will walk away with practical tools to overcome the invisible forces of inertia and resistance to change, and to experience real, productive change that makes a difference in their life and in their work. Workshop process is delivered online, experiential content is worked on in real-time and all ITC Map Templates and Guides are provided.

People development is embedded into the culture instead of a one-off experience that disappears as soon as everyone goes back to their desks. ITC approaches learning and personal development at work as a “team sport,” with support, challenge and accountability come from peers rather than an outside source.

Workshop 2

Overcome Collective Immunity to Change™

for Organizational Teams

Teams, like individuals, can be Immune to Change. They commit to improvements they genuinely want and need to make in order to increase their effectiveness, and yet they collectively act contrary to those intentions.

Outcomes

• Illuminate collective mindsets and hidden assumptions within a team

• Establish clear, actionable team improvement goals

• Discover how hidden cultural assumptions influence success initiatives

• Alignment of team members with larger organizational change goal

• Improve collaboration, synergy and leadership capacities

The Process

Case Studies - Overall Findings

• Significant improvements in a team’s and individuals’ Leadership Effectiveness*

• Powerful shifts in a leader’s ability to spend their energies creatively to achieve their purpose, rather than reactively in ways that drain energy from their purpose.

• Noteworthy increases in particular capacities of leadership, such as one leader’s improvements in leading with Authenticity. Rated as performing only in the 28th percentile at the start of the coaching engagement, his ITC work on this very goal successfully improved his rating to the 70th percentile.

*Measurement data was obtained using The Leadership Circle Profile Assessment before and after the ITC work.

Case Study #1:

An executive team doubled its leadership effectiveness and improved its business performance by concurrently overcoming the team members' individual and collective Immunity to Change.

Summary of Findings:

• Over 18 months, the leadership team of five executives almost doubled their collective Leadership Effectiveness from the 43rd percentile in August 2019 to the 81st percentile in January 2021 - 88% growth.

• Over these 18 months, the executive team increased the company’s growth profit margin from 68% to 82% and reserved cash through a few strategic business and organizational changes, such as a new sales compensation plan and new contract manufacturing overseas.

• Sr. VP of Sales - Leadership Effectiveness grew from the 73rd percentile to the 93rd percentile, and the Reactive-Creative Scale increased from 63% to 94%.

• In June 2021, the executive team invited their direct reports to join the ITC leadership development program. As a result, direct reports scored with the highest Leadership Effectiveness and Creative competencies, lowest Reactive tendencies, and most balanced Task-Relationship among the company’s second-tier leadership.

• The Leadership Effectiveness of the direct reports was highly correlated with the executives to which they reported. The most effective leaders developed the most effective team members.

Case Study #2 (p 12):

Working with the leadership team of a global software services company with members located in the USA, Latin America, Asia, and Europe showed that leveraging the Immunity to Change framework with individual members and their teams yielded significant results faster.

Summary of findings:

• Sr. Director to the Vice President didn’t believe he would survive long when reviewing his performance. Six months later, instead of losing his job, he was promoted to Vice President, leading a customer-facing division with P&L responsibility.

• Vice President boosted his Leadership Effectiveness from the 14th percentile to the 47th percentile.