This document discusses overcoming resistance to change. It introduces a 5-step process for identifying the underlying reasons for resistance called "Immunity to Change". The steps are: 1) Stating your commitment to change, 2) Identifying competing behaviors, 3) Uncovering hidden competing commitments and worries, 4) Surfacing assumptions causing resistance, and 5) Testing assumptions through small experiments. An example is provided to illustrate how to apply the steps to understand resistance to adopting more agile practices like test-driven development.

1. Why Change is Hard
and what you can do about it
Overcoming Immunity
to Change

2. Help people cross the chasm between knowing
and doing

3. #StateOfAgile

4. 59%
”use agile practices
But still maturing”
using a weight-loss diet
but not losing much weight
sounds an awful lot like…

5. #StateOfAgile

6. Technical Skills
Methodologies:
SAFe Founding Member & current Scaled Agile
Framework (SAFe) Certified Program Consultant 4.0
(SPC4), Scrum, Kanban, ScrumBan, Business Process
Re-Engineering, Lean, Value Stream Mapping, Change
Management, Kanban, Culture Transformation
Typical coaching resume…

7. Engaged
Work with passion and feel a
profound connection to their
organization. They drive
innovation and move the
organization forward.
Not Engaged
Essentially “checked out.” They’re
sleepwalking through their workday,
putting time, but not energy or passion,
into their work.
Actively Disengaged
Aren’t just unhappy at work; they’re
actively acting out their
unhappiness and even undermine
what their engaged coworkers
accomplish.
33% 16%51%
67% Aren't In the Game!*
* 2017 Gallup ‘State of the American Workplace report’ 2/17

8. No shortage of change models
ADKAR
KOTTER
LEWIN

9. They have SOME of
The Building Blocks
for Change
But… the’re missing a
critical one

10. Homo economicus
Goal seeking, Logical, rational, in-control Organizations are made of meat
Meat

11. Wired into our decision
making…
• Motivated Reasoning / Cognitive dissonance
• Loss Aversion / Sunk-cost fallacy / endowment effect
• Dunning-Kruger effect / Illusory Superiority
• Hostile attribution bias
• Hyperbolic discounting
• Reactance / Reactive devaluation
• Planning fallacy / optimism bias / Hindsight bias / Rosy
Retrospection
• Normalcy bias
• Status quo bias
• Brand loyalty

12. Imagine a mouse that thinks
the way we do. Such a mouse,
“bent on confirming its
belief that there are no cats
around,” would soon be
dinner
There
is no
cat!

13. Two Jobs
Job 1 – The professed problem: Email,
Meetings, Plans, Priorities, etc.
Job 2 – Status, Certainty,
Autonomy, Relatedness, Fairness

14. Two Jobs
Job 1 – The professed problem: Email,
Meetings, Plans, Priorities, etc.
Job 2 – Status, Certainty,
Autonomy, Relatedness, Fairness
Not embarrassed

15. Where do
managers
of developers
come from?

16. Leadership & Engagement Process / Skills
Culture & Relationships Organizational Architecture,
Allocation, & Environment
• Process
• Procedure
• Technology / Tools
• Rules
• Skills
• Group values / deeply held
beliefs
• Motivation
• Level of cooperation
• Level of openness
• Fears, anxiety, stress levels
• Trust, safety
• Leader Values / beliefs
• Focus - Tactical vs. Strategic
• Relative Priorities
• Skill in leading change
• Leadership style
• Physical environment
• Formal (reporting) relationships
• Structure of organization
• Physical location of people
• Size and allocation of teams
• Roles and Responsibilities
Integral Agile Transformation Framework™
*Michael K. Spayd, from ‘Coaching the Agile Enterprise’
Stuff you can see
and analyze

17. Clare W. GravesEdgar Schein Ken Wilber Robert Kegan
Organization
Culture
Model
Integral
Theory
Adult stage
Development
Spiral
Dynamics

18. Leadership & Engagement Plan/Process/Skills
Culture & Relationships Organizational Architecture,
Allocation, & Environment
• Process
• Procedure
• Technology / Tools
• Rules
• Skills
• Group values / deeply held
beliefs and assumptions
• Motivation
• Level of cooperation
• Level of openness
• Fears, anxiety, stress levels
• Trust / Psychological safety
• Leader Values / beliefs
• Focus - Tactical vs. Strategic
• Relative Priorities
• Skill in leading change
• Cognitive Complexity (stage)
• Spiral Level
• Physical environment
• Formal (reporting) relationships
• Structure of organization
• Physical location of people
• Size and allocation of teams
• Roles and Responsibilities
Integral Agile Transformation Framework™
*Michael K. Spayd, from ‘Coaching the Agile Enterprise’

19. How they perceive it

20. Where do the leaders responsible for change in
your organizations focus their attention?

21. Technical
Challenge
• Easy to identify
• lend themselves to quick and easy (cut-and-
dried) solutions
• Often can be solved by an authority or expert
• Require change in just one or a few places;
often contained within organizational boundaries
• People are generally receptive to technical
solutions
• Solutions can often be implemented quickly—even
by edict

22. Adaptive
Challenge
• Difficult to identify (easy to deny)
• Require changes in values, beliefs, roles,
relationships, & approaches to work
• People with the problem do the work of solving it
• Require change in numerous places; usually cross
organizational boundaries
• People often resist even acknowledging adaptive
challenges
• “Solutions” require experiments and new
discoveries; they can take a long time to implement
and cannot be implemented by edict

23. Technical
Challenge?
Adaptive
Challenge?
The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the World -Dr. Ronald
Heifetz

24. Technical
Challenge?
Adaptive
Challenge?

25. Technical
Challenge?
Adaptive
Challenge?

26. Technical
Challenge?
Adaptive
Challenge?

27. Technical
Challenge?
Adaptive
Challenge?

28. There
is no
cat!
Adaptive Challenge?

29. The
Streetlight
Effect
Over-focus on
process and other
‘easy to see’ stuff

36. ”When cardiologists tell their
seriously at-risk heart patients
they will literally die if they
don’t change their lifestyle, only
one person in seven is
actually able to make the
changes…"

37. Facts don’t
change our minds
or our behavior

38. What happens when you transplant an
organ?

39. Your immune system tries to keep you safe
Without it you’d die in days

40. Your body has a similar immune system that
responds when you try to transplant new ideas.

41. Your Limbic System

42. To
Survive

43. The Limbic System under perceived threat
Within a fifth of a second!

44. Big Tiger or Bad news:
it’s all the same to amygdala

45. Response to threat / danger is FAR more
powerful than reward
NeuroLeadership in action – Org Change Practitioners LinkedIn Group

46. We need one more
block to cope with
our limbic system
trying to keep us
safe…

48. Five Steps to overcome Immunity To Change (ITC)
Response
Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 4 Step 5

50. Step 1: “I am
committed to…”
What’s your goal? What
do you really want?

51. Step 2: “What am I
doing (or not doing)
that conflicts with my
stated commitment?”
• What are you observably doing instead?
• What might people who really know me say
I’m doing instead of what I say I should be
doing?
• Make a list of as many things as you can
think of.
These are the competing behaviors

52. Step 3 (part 1) - “What
would worry me if I
STOPPED (or did the
opposite) of what I’m
doing now (instead of my
stated commitment)
• Imagine doing the opposite of what you’re
doing now (whatever that is)
• What are the most uncomfortable,
worrisome, or outright scary feelings that
come to you?

53. Step 3 (part 2) - What
negative consequences
am I trying to avoid?
What are my deeper
(hidden) commitments?
• What negative consequences am I trying to
avoid?
• What am I trying to protect?
• What is it I’m committed to protect?
This reveals your hidden competing commitments

54. Step 4 - “I assume if I make a commitment to stop
doing something in step 3 I will not be able to….”
• What dangers do you foresee if you let go of your
competing commitments? What could go wrong?
• Ask, “What assumptions am I making that I believe
are ‘true’ about this?”
• ASK: What bad things might happen to my:
• Status? – with peers, leadership?
• Certainty?
• Autonomy? – ability to choose
• Relationships?
• Fairness ?
• Brainstorm as many assumptions as you can
Until you can access this level of
awareness, overcoming your immunity to
change is extremely difficult to impossible

56. Step 5 - “What safe,
modest test can I run to
verify the truth of my
assumption?”
• What’s your most powerful
assumption? What worries
you most?
• What one small thing could I
try that would give me
compelling evidence for or
against my assumptions?
• How can you make it testable?
• Run the test
The Goal: prove to your immune
system that the assumptions it’s
making are false (or not as bad)

58. Let’s walk through an example
1. Stated Commitment?
“I want us to be more agile. I’ll be accountable and help
remove our team’s impediments!”
2. Competing Behaviors?
Doesn’t attend Sprint reviews, doesn’t follow-up with
team, doesn’t follow through on asks, makes excuses, too
busy, blames lack of productivity on lack of commitment
3. Competing Commitments?
Maintain status with peers and leaders. Keep costs down.
Don’t waste time. Avoid disruption. Keep everyone busy!
4. Big Assumptions?
I don’t have enough authority. It’ll get rejected anyway. I’ll
lose status. It won’t help anyway. More busy = more done.
5. Safe Tests – Baby Steps?
- not co-located
- test environment too
slow
- PO, SM, team
members spread
across too many
teams
- Etc…

59. Here’s another…
1. Stated Commitment?
“We promise to do more TDD and refactoring to increase our
code quality ”
2. Competing Behaviors?
Write’s tests after. Works alone. Won’t mob or pair-program.
Refactors only rarely. Skips brown bags. Gets upset when code is
critiqued.
3. Competing Commitments?
Finish everything we said we would. Get promotion to tech lead.
Maintain my status in the team. Be better than the rest.
4. Big Assumptions?
Writing tests first will slow me down. Working with others will
slow me down. If II go slow they’ll blame me. If I pair up with
somebody I’ll go slower. They’ll find out where my skills are lax.
If I look like I need help I won’t get promoted.
5. Safe Tests – Baby Steps?

60. What are some other tacit
assumptions that may be at work?

61. Jay Packlick
Jay.packlick@gmail.com