Change is difficult. If change were easier and more straight-forward, we would all be healthier, thinner, more fit, more organized, better listeners, and better delegators.
Instead, most cardiac patients, after they are told they must change their behavior in order to live longer, risk their lives by continuing or reverting back to their old behavior. Most dieters gain back more than the weight they have just lost. The offices of corporations are full of executives who really mean to become better listeners and to delegate more often, but fail to do so.
Harvard University's Kegan and Lahey have come up with a methodology they call "overcoming immunity to change" that is proving to be extremely effective in creating lasting change - often in cases where clients have tried to change for years without success.
The overcoming immunity to change process can help with goals such as:
- Delegating and developing staff more effectively
- Becoming a better listener
- Finding a healthier work / life balance
- Losing weight
- Getting more exercise
- Other problems where multiple solutions have been tried and none have led to long-term, sustainable change - including those issues that have appeared year after year on performance reviews under "needs improvement"!
Jonathan Sibley has been trained and licensed by Kegan and Lahey to use the overcoming immunity to change method with his clients. The work can be done one-on-one or with groups and executive teams.
The immunity to change method explores how each of gets stuck when our initial motivation to change is met by equally strong, or stronger, competing commitments not to change. Often, these competing commitments are completely out of our awareness. Once competing commitments are discovered, we can explore the assumptions that have kept them in place and design ways to test whether it might be safe to revise our assumptions. Until the underlying assumptions can safely be discarded, it is likely to be quite difficult to create lasting change.
In addition to helping individuals, the same methodology can be used to help executive teams become significantly more effective by breaking through barriers to change within the group.For more information on how "Overcoming Immunity to Change Coaching" might be able to help you, please contact Jonathan Sibley
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