Hello 2015! Time does fly too fast! Every year, many of us make New Year’s resolutions on self improvement, yet how many of these do we actually realize? If we pause to reflect and honestly admit to ourselves that we often fall short rather than succeed, then learning about and applying the Immunity to Change process to yourself can make a huge difference to help you be more successful with your goals.
I’ve finally had the opportunity to read the book Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock the Potential in Yourself and Your Organization by Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey. I decided to check the authors’ website http://mindsatwork.com/ at that time and discovered that they were just about to conduct an experimental research based online class on the Immunity to Change (ITC) process and how effective it might be if taught in an online course. It was a free course by HarvardX on https://www.edx.org/. What a great experiential way to learn about the Immunity to Change approach and process, in addition to reading about it!
I signed up to the course HarvardX: GSE1.1x Unlocking the Immunity to Change: A New Approach to Personal Improvement and completed the 13 weeks, starting September 16 and ending December 15, 2014. I enjoyed the learning experience with Kegan and Lahey giving many short video lectures throughout the course to explain the key concepts, and with volunteer students who are sharing their Immunity to Change X-rays as they create them one step, one column, one week, at a time…in class. The discussion forum was a great way to learn from and with other course participants. The online Change Diary was a truly a useful tool in helping us learn and apply the ITC process to ourselves.
I learned a lot from the course. These include, but are not limited to the following:
- How to create your own Immunity to Change Map or “X-ray” and how to apply the ITC process to yourself.
- One reason we fail at our self improvement goals is that we often apply a “technical approach” to change when what is needed is an “adaptive approach. That is, we try to change our behaviors without first learning and observing our assumptions that impact our efforts. We need to realize when each approach may be appropriate for us.
- The assumptions that we may not be aware of may actually be acting as our ITC immune system because they support other goal(s) that are competing with our expressed self improvement goal.
- It is only when we become conscious of such assumptions, when they may or may not be true, and how they affect us, that we can begin to free ourselves from their hold on us.
- It is more effective to focus on “the one big thing” that really makes a difference for us and work on that, rather than trying to unsuccessfully tackle several self improvement goals simultaneously.
- That personal change takes time, we can backslide, and it helps when we are kind to ourselves as well. How much time? It depends on your self improvement goal…and be ready to give yourself 3 months to 6 months or even a year to work on it and make the change second nature to you.
- You need reinforcement and support from your significant others and those who you interact with in the context of your self improvement goal.
The first few weeks focused on helping us identify and choose a self improvement goal to work on during the 13-weeks and completing our ITC Map or “X-ray.” After completing our ITC Map, we then focused on creating simple experiments to help us observe our behaviors and test our assumptions, how true or false they were, and how they affected us in relation to expressed self improvement goal, and how explore how we might free ourselves from such assumptions that have a hold on us.
Briefly shown below is the focus of each week of the online course.
- Week 1: Welcome and Orientation
- Week 2: Choosing an Improvement Goal
- Week 3: Completing the First Half of Your Immunity to Change Map
- Week 4: Completing the Second Half of Your Immunity to Change Map
- Week 5: Self Observations
- Week 6: Continuum of Progress
- Week 7: Biography
- Week 8: Designing your first test
- Week 9: Running and interpreting your first test
- Week 10: Designing your second test
- Week 11: Running and interpreting your second test
- Week 12: Hooks and releases
- Week 13: Ending well
- Plus a 2-week grace period to complete course activities for those who may have fallen behind.
If you’re interested to learn more about this free online HarvardX course and join the next free run, if there is one, visit these links:
- Unlocking the Immunity to Change Course: A New Approach to Self Improvement
- Course Intro Video
- Unlocking the Immunity to Change Facebook Page
If you just want to watch all the videos and sample the course materials, that’s ok. However, if you want to make the most of it, make sure you block off at least 2-3 hours a week in your calendar and complete the activities and write them up in your Change Diary. It’s difficult to catch up if you fall behind because you do need each week to watch the lectures and participant sharing, do the exercises, reflect, observe, write, and participate in the online forum.
In the meantime, you may want to dive into the book Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock the Potential in Yourself and Your Organization by Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey.
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