Immunity to Change in Coaching
Immunity to Change is a coaching method for the frustrating gap between wanting to change and actually doing it. It uncovers the hidden commitments and big assumptions that quietly protect the current behavior, even when a client genuinely wants something different. It is a powerful tool for deep behavior change, where willpower alone has not been enough.
What Is Immunity to Change?
The Immunity to Change model was developed by Harvard researchers Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey. Their insight is that we often hold an unconscious competing commitment that works against our stated goal. We are not simply lazy or undisciplined; part of us is actively, if invisibly, protecting the status quo. The method makes that hidden system visible, so a client can work with it instead of fighting themselves.
The Four Columns
- Improvement goal - what change do you genuinely want?
- Competing behavior - what do you keep doing that works against it?
- Hidden commitment - what are you protecting by not changing?
- Big assumption - what do you assume would happen if you let go?
How to Use Immunity to Change in Coaching
- Start with a genuine improvement goal, not one the client feels they should have
- List the behaviors that work against it honestly, without judgment
- Look underneath: what fear or self-protection do those behaviors serve?
- Name the big assumption that keeps the immune system in place
- Design a small, safe test that gently challenges that assumption
Coaching Questions for Immunity to Change
- What change do you genuinely want to make?
- What do you keep doing that works against it?
- What might you be protecting by not changing?
- What do you assume would happen if you let go of that?
- What small experiment could test that assumption?
When to Use Immunity to Change
- When a client wants change but keeps repeating the old pattern
- When motivation is real but progress stalls again and again
- When a goal has been set many times without lasting result
Immunity to Change in FocusCoachee
FocusCoachee includes Immunity to Change as a coaching method. You can add it directly to a session, and the client stays an active participant: they map the four columns, reflect between sessions, and track the assumption they are testing. Because the map is saved, the client can return to it as they run small experiments, so a deep pattern becomes something they can observe and gradually loosen.
Want to work with deep change methods like this one? Explore the plans.
FocusCoachee also lets you add your own methods. If you work with a different version of this tool, or have a framework you always use with clients, you can build it as a custom method and add it to any session - just like the built-in ones.
Read also:
