resistance | Reggie Marra, MA, PCC

[Part of our ongoing exploration of Chapter Eleven of Healing America’s Narratives: The Feminine, the Masculine, & Our Collective National Shadow, this essay explores why it often feels like we’re immune to change. The book is available here.]

Photo © by Suzanne D. Williams on Unsplash

We know that change can be unsettling, even scary, whether it’s exterior change imposed by events such as war, weather, or pandemic, or prospective interior change of beliefs, values, or view, beckoning for our attention. As we continue our exploration of Chapter Eleven’s foundational question, “So, now what?” we’ll briefly consider here a model of how and why we resist change.

For more than two decades, Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey have researched, developed, and implemented their “immunity to change” approach to understanding and overcoming individual and organizational resistance to change. In workshops and in their 2009 book, Immunity to Change, they present a nuanced four-column process that asks us to identify in column one, our goals — what we are committed to changing.¹ [e.g. I want to spend less time looking at my phone.]

In column two, we list what we do or don’t do that obstructs the path to achieving these column one goals. [I use my phone to get news, for entertainment, for being in touch with friends and family, as an alarm clock, and to search online. I always have it within arms reach. I don’t allow myself to be away from it.]

In column three, we first name what we’re afraid might happen if we stop the column two behaviors that we do engage, or actually engage the column two behaviors that we avoid; [I’m afraid I’ll miss out on something important; I’m afraid my friends and family will think I don’t care about them; I’m afraid I won’t be up to date on the news and might appear ignorant…] and then the competing commitments that underly these fears [I’m committed to not missing out on anything; I’m committed to not letting my friends and family down; I’m committed to not appearing ignorant…]

In column four, we explore the assumptions that inform the competing commitments [I assume that if I miss something important, terrible things will happen; I assume that if I don’t respond to family and friends quickly they will think I don’t care; I assume that if I’m not up to date on the latest news, others will think I’m ignorant…].

In Kegan and Lahey’s exploration of assumptions, they ask us to determine (test) whether the assumptions are true or false, and they label any assumption that was previously unconscious or that was conscious but untested, as a Big Assumption — worthy of investigation. Unconscious or unexplored assumptions have us. We have assumptions once we are aware of and have tested them.

With these steps laid out across a four-column worksheet, an “immunity to change map” depicts an immune system that is designed to keep us safe:

“…the set of big assumptions collectively makes the third-column commitments inevitable…it is clear how they sustain the immune system: The third-column commitments clearly follow from the big assumptions and generate the behaviors in column 2; these behaviors clearly under-mine the goal in column 1.”²

As with re-visioning narratives and owning and integrating Shadow, Kegan and Lahey’s immunity to change process helps us uncover what is hidden — competing commitments and big assumptions — so we might move forward in a more integrated way.

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Robert Kegan, and Lisa Laskow Lahey, Immunity to Change, (Harvard Business Press, 2009). The process is “nuanced,” detailed, and specific and unfolds most accurately and effectively through numerous conversations and drafts (i.e. rushing through it is not a skillful approach). Their chapter 9, “Diagnosing Your Own Immunity to Change” is available here: https://mindsatwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Chapter9.pdf
Kegan and Lahey, 250.

[Part of a series, this essay continues our exploration of Healing America’s Narratives: The Feminine, the Masculine, & Our Collective National Shadow. Now available.]

Bear navigating resistance with the suet cage

While we did not explicitly explore resistance in Healing America’s Narratives, it is implicitly present in every chapter of the book — always there any time we bump up against something that challenges our current view or way of doing things. Europeans resisted embracing Africans as equals and instead enslaved them; Europeans resisted embracing the indigenous peoples of what are now known as the Americas and instead lied to them, took their land, and tried to force them to abandon their cultures. Men have resisted embracing women as equals for millennia. You get the idea. There are many more examples, but resistance can lead to good as well.

In my training as a coach with Integral Coaching Canada, we got intimate with resistance in our own lives so we might better work with it when it showed up in a coaching (or any other) relationship. In coaching, both the client and the coach are apt to resist something. Kevin Snorf — a mentor, colleague, and friend — is steadfast in his belief that resistance is necessary for, and is in fact a first step in, progress or development. What follows arises in large part from what I continue to learn from him.

In coaching, we find resistance when coaching is not the appropriate modality for the client (this rarely happens, and when it does, it tends to become evident in consultation — before formal coaching begins). Once coaching begins, resistance may arise for various reasons. Here are three, listed in order from least to most common:

The scale of the coaching is not appropriate for the client (usually this means the coach has miscalculated at some level or is projecting something onto the client).
The client doesn’t understand or is not convinced of the value of a particular request or practice (usually because the coach has not conveyed the purpose, meaning, or “why” adequately).
The client’s current view or “way of being” in the world — how and who the client is at the onset of the coaching — opposes any change to the status quo (changing the status quo in some way is the goal of most coaching, and resistance to change is an expected and “normal” part of the process).

So, translated from the specifics of a coaching relationship and into our ongoing attempt to recognize, own, and integrate Shadow in order to heal an individual or collective narrative, resistance might arise based on:

Scale: The depth of the denial and projection (Shadow) and the complexity of the healing that is warranted feel overwhelming, so it’s hard to know how and where to start, and resistance to both the Shadow work and the healing arises. When this happens, finding one accessible, simple step is essential. You can’t eat that entire meal in one bite. Start somewhere, chew thoroughly, swallow and repeat. Monitor your serving size, clean your plate, and don’t overeat.
Lack of understand, purpose, or “why”: In our lives (outside the coaching relationship), this one will usually prevent progress. It can stop us cold. In the absence of an understanding of why we might benefit from Shadow work and healing our narratives — without a sense of purpose — the status quo will feel all right, or at least better than trying to change. Communities of practice, professionals, family, or good friends might help us here. (In future essays, we’ll address the importance of practice).
The current way or view is getting in the way: We tend to enjoy and welcome what is comfortable, habitual, or familiar. By definition, growth and development move us beyond habit and familiarity, and inevitably involve some discomfort. When it comes to a more flexible body, our muscles initially resist the stretch beyond what’s comfortable; one way toward a stronger body is literally called resistance training — push or pull against the weight. Our minds tend to resist the unfamiliar, and the unfamiliar is how we learn, grow, and develop.

So, if you’re bumping into resistance, don’t fall in love with or attempt to exile it. Rather, pay attention. There’s a message in there somewhere. To paraphrase Rumi in “The Guest House,” be grateful for every unexpected visitor.

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More on resistance: Joanne Hunt, “Coaching: The Dance of Change and Resistance. Joanne founded Integral Coaching Canada with Laura Divine (1954–2022). Kevin Snorf and I were both fortunate to have them as teachers. https://www.integralcoachingcanada.com/sites/default/files/pdf/danceofchange.pdf