Humans differ significantly in their ability to make change.  As a personal coach to executives for more than thirty years, it’s obvious that these differences are the status quo. Desire and motivation aren’t enough—even when it’s literally a matter of life or death.

Some, it seems, have a profound immunity to change.  Often, they understand the need for change and they may even understand what the change might look like. But for some reason they seem stymied, and unable to achieve long term change.

It’s an issue I’ve worked with for years, and thankfully, with some unique and useful breakthroughs.  Still, change is a very messy, sometimes fuzzy process.  And so I was delighted to see that the Harvard profs, Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow, who’ve spent years analyzing and researching the same problem, have come up with some especially intriguing insights and very useful strategies.  Indeed, they’ve clarified my own conclusions, making them ever more practical.

The basic question I’ve been asking is what really drives personal change and growth?

A system-wide study of research, as well as their and my own experience finds that the real driver for change is what can be called optimal conflicts.  By optimal conflict I mean conflicts that are of the greatest degree that provide the most favorable conditions for resolution.  These are messy drivers that draw on both our head and our heart, on both our thinking and our feeling.

Kegan and Laskow lay out their understanding of optimal conflicts this way.

• The persistent experience of some frustration, dilemma, life puzzle, quandry or personal problem that is . . .
• Perfectly designed to cause us to feel the limits of our current way of knowing . . .
• In some sphere of our living that we care about, with . . .
• Sufficient supports so that we are neither overwhelmed by the conflict nor able to escape or diffuse it.

If you or your colleagues seem to be immune to change, I suspect an analysis of what’s going on will be serious enough to fit the above template.

An unforgettable example: A few years ago, I was asked by a marketing executive at one of America’s leading companies to assist him with change–one that fit the above categories perfectly.  In his early 40s, he’d worked in a very hierarchical manner with his employees for his entire professional life.  His firm was making major changes, pushing down responsibility, and making executives into team facilitators rather than “order givers.”  Because his people especially liked the new direction, they were beginning to complain about his old hierarchical ways.  It went on for some time and he got more and more frustrated. He also realized that if he didn’t change, he’d gain a bad reputation, lose his job and be at financial risk. You can readily imagine that both his thoughts and his feelings were intertwined.  So, when he came to me asking for support in making the change, he put the statement clearly:  “Dan,” he said.  “I’m a dinosaur (at age 43), and if I don’t make some changes, I’m going to be on the streets.  How can you help me?”

A small proportion of us have worked through our immunity to change, but that VP was caught in a trap. Thankfully, he recognized his mess.  But the drivers were all in place, forcing him to get beyond that immunity.

Reference: Robert Kegan and Lisa Lakow, Immunity to Change.  (Boston: Harvard Business Press), 2009