4. Change Management
Competing commitments (Immunity to Change)
Why sensible change stalls
Immunity to Change is used as a trademark by Minds at Work. Named here to identify the model. No affiliation or endorsement.
Use when
A change everyone agreed to is not happening, and nobody is visibly opposing it
- 1
Improvement goal
The change you genuinely want, stated as behaviour, not aspiration
- 2
Doing / not doing
The honest inventory of behaviours working against the goal
- 3
Hidden competing commitment
What those behaviours are brilliantly protecting you from
- 4
Big assumption
The belief that makes the competing commitment feel necessary. Test it small
“The failure to change is not a deficit. It is the success of an invisible commitment.”
How to use it
Run it one person or one team at a time, in writing, over an hour. The move is not exhortation: surface the competing commitment, name the big assumption behind it, then design the smallest safe test that could disconfirm it. Watch-out: it is developmental work, not a workshop icebreaker; do not run it where psychological safety is low.
Card details
- Model type
- Sequence
- Origin status
- Established
- Content last reviewed
- 28 July 2026
Origin
EstablishedRobert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey, Immunity to Change, 2009.