The Immunity Map
Coined by Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey and described in their book Immunity to Change, the Immunity Map is a tool to help people achieve personal goals by discovering what holds them back from this desired state or behavior.
Connection to coaching
When you’re stuck, trapped in a cycle you can’t seem to break, it’s natural to look outward for help. For many people, enlisting the help of a coach can provide that much needed support and accountability. With the help of the Immunity Map tool, a coach can:
Guide you through the process of creating and refining your Immunity Map (see below)
Provide support as you identify ways to test your big assumptions
Accompany you as you identify insights and incorporate them into your way of thinking and behaving, which can unlock the potential to accomplish an important goal
About the Immunity Map
The Immunity Map provides the opportunity to develop an internal “x-ray” and make previously invisible dynamics into clearly observable patterns. It reveals the “immune system” you have created that guides your behaviors and keeps you from achieving your goal – all with the seemingly pure intent of keeping you safe. When this system inevitably starts to create side effects and keeps you stuck in place, though, it’s a good opportunity to get clear on what’s really going on beneath the surface.
Metaphorically, you have one foot on the gas pedal
(moving you toward your goal), while the other foot is on the break.
The map itself is organized into 4 columns, which are filled in to help uncover insights about what stands between you and your desired change (see Figure 9-1 from the book, below).
In column one, you fill in your desired improvement goal. It’s important to select this goal wisely, using a few criteria as your guide:
The goal must be adaptive, rather than technical, which means it can’t be resolved through technical means like a training course on a specific skill or adherence to a new diet.
The goal must be motivating – something you really want to achieve. Overcoming your “immunity to change” requires significant effort, so achieving your goal must be really worth it.
Frame the goal in terms of the positive – what you want to do or become. Avoid framing it in terms of the negative – what you want to stop doing.
Consider whether external feedback would be helpful in refining your goal. You could ask trusted colleagues, friends, or family what they think would make a big difference in your life or what improvements you could make that they would value highly.
In column two, you add the actions or behaviors that you’re either doing or not doing, which are contributing to the inability to achieve your goal. Here are some tips:
List as many behaviors as you can
Check to ensure your entries are actually behaviors, rather than states of mind. So instead of “I get impatient,” the behavior could be “I look at my phone.”
Be honest and include the behaviors that make you cringe – there’s no judgment. In fact, the key is to look at these behaviors as useful data that can help uncover what’s really holding you back.
Avoid jumping into action to try to change these actions (which would signify a technical solution to your problem). You will instead use them to identify the next column of your map.
In column three, you record the internal commitments you have made to yourself, consciously or subconsciously, which contradict the new action or behavior you need to take to achieve your goal. Here’s how to determine your hidden competing commitments.
Step 1 is to list out your worries (in the “worry box” included in column 3) that plague you when you think about what you’d have to do to achieve your goal. Kegan and Lahey phrase it like this:
“If I imagine myself trying to do the opposite of [the actions in Column 2], what is the most uncomfortable or worrisome or outright scary feeling that comes up for me?”
In Column 3, we’re looking for the fears that underly your actions. This part can be confronting and that means you’re onto something.
Step 2 is to list out a commitment that you have made to NOT having the fears come to fruition. So if you have fear of looking stupid in front of a group, your commitment is “to not looking stupid.” List out a commitment for each fear in your “worry box.” You can check your commitments by asking yourself if the following are true (they should be):
Is this commitment about self-protection?
Does this commitment make some (or all) of the behaviors in Column 2 sensible?
Finally, column four is reserved for your big assumptions. These are the deeply-rooted beliefs, artfully disguised as absolute truths, and are often about who you are at your core. To discover your big assumptions, start by listing all the possible assumptions a person who had the commitments in Column 3 of your map might have. Your own assumptions will start to become clear through this process and you can list them in Column 4. These form the basis of what you will test in working with your map to achieve your goal.
As you create your Immunity Map, you will get a picture of a dynamic system, happening within you, that was previously invisible. Gaining this awareness of what’s really going on is the first step to making a change.
Here’s the template for an Immunity Map:
And here’s an example of an early-stage Immunity Map from the book:
The arrows you see in the example, above, show how the process can go around in circles. The hidden competing commitments are in direct conflict with achieving the goal and the big assumptions are fueling the behaviors in the “doing/not doing” column. Until you can intervene and break this cycle, you will not be able to achieve the change you seek. That’s where working with a coach can be invaluable.
Limitations
Like any tool, the Immunity Map is not a one-size-fits-all solution to your problems. As stated above, it works best for challenges that are “adaptive,” meaning they can’t be solved with a technical solution, and for problems that you’re really committed to solving.
In addition, the tool is likely to uncover some blindspots, which can represent shameful or shocking beliefs we hold that are hard to stomach. It may not be prudent to use such a tool, then, with a person who is not interested in or capable of contending with those deep, dark, assumptions at the current time.
Learn More
If you’d like to learn more about the Immunity to Change method, check out this article, listen to the first 5 minutes of this podcast, or pick up the book.
References
Kegan, R., & Lahey, L. L. (2009). Immunity to change: How to overcome it and unlock the potential in yourself and your organization. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing.