INTRODUCTION OF THE ARTICLE
"The real reason people won't change" is an article by Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey. The article was first published in November 2001 in Harvard Business Review. The article describes and summarize about the personal immunity of people that resist them from being changed.
The real reason people wont change is not due to lack of skill and deep commitment within them but it is due to hidden competing commitment followed by big assumptions. For some, the need is confidence-building, for others it's behavior change or skill development. But sometimes, no matter how hard a person tries, their progress remains inexplicably stalled. The situation can be as frustrating to bosses, colleagues, and family members
Tom concluded "I'm afraid I'll hear about a problem that I can't fix, something that I can't do anything about." After all, the final step is to transform that passive fear into a statement that reflects an active commitment to preventing certain outcomes. The resulting answer to this final question is the competing commitment which lies at the very heart of a person's immunity to change. These commitments usually involve protecting yourself from things like, not being in control, having to follow someone else's decisions, having to go along with decisions you don't like, not having to deal with problems you can't fix and so on.
EXAMINING AND OVERCOMING BIG ASSUMPTIONS
Once people uncover their competing commitments, big assumption can be easily found out. If people inverted the beginning of the sentences of competing commitment, and then filled out the sentence then assumption can be identified. For e.g. the assumption of Tom is "I assume that if I did hear about problems I can’t fix, people would discover I’m not qualified to do my job." This is a difficult process, and it doesn’t happen all at once, because admitting to big assumptions makes people uncomfortable. After identifying competing commitment and big assumptions, Kegan and Lahey had recommended five steps on how to take action to overcome immunity to change.
Notice and record current behavior
It is about making a note of what does and doesn't