Immunity to Change
Dimension: Mindset · Type: Foundation
A four-column diagnostic for the gap between knowing what you should do and not doing it. The map’s central reframe: when you keep failing to move toward a goal you genuinely want, the cause is rarely resistance. You are protecting something. The four columns surface what you are protecting and the assumption underneath it.
Introduced by Rengin Isik Akin (Staff Counsellor, UNFCCC) at the Leading from Within session of the UN Inter-Agency Career Week 2026, on 7 May 2026. Rengin presented the model briefly in the mindset section of the session and linked to Chapter 9 of the Kegan-Lahey book on the session’s resource page. The model is original to Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey, Harvard psychologists who have spent decades on adult-development research. The full method appears in their 2009 book Immunity to Change.
The framework
The Immunity Map is built column by column. Each column reveals something the previous one was protecting. The value is not in column 1 or column 2, where most people stop; it is in columns 3 and 4.
When to use it
- When you have a clear improvement goal you have failed to act on for months or years.
- When you keep starting and stopping the same change (a habit, a career move, a difficult conversation).
- When the gap between what you believe and what you do feels persistent and frustrating.
- When standard goal-setting and accountability tools have not produced the change.
What you need
One specific improvement goal that you genuinely want and have not been moving on. Sixty to ninety minutes of uninterrupted time, ideally with a notebook or a four-column document. Honest reflection. The exercise only works if you push past your first answers. Optional: a coach, mentor, or peer to walk through it with. Some of the steps are easier to surface in conversation than alone.
The four-column Immunity Map
Column 1. Improvement goal
What is the change you genuinely want? Specific, important, and yours.
Examples:
- “I want to speak up more in senior leadership meetings.”
- “I want to apply for the next P-4 vacancy in my area.”
- “I want to stop saying yes to every request and protect my time.”
The goal must matter to you, not just be something you feel you should want. If it is borrowed, the rest of the map will not produce useful tension.
Column 2. Behaviours working against the goal
What are you currently doing (or not doing) that runs counter to the goal?
For “speak up more in senior meetings”: not preparing in advance, deferring to more senior colleagues, agreeing with the previous speaker even when you disagree, finding reasons to stay silent (“I don’t have all the data yet”).
This column is descriptive, not judgmental. Just an honest list of the behaviours.
Column 3. Hidden competing commitment
This is the heart of the model. The behaviours in column 2 are not random; they are protecting something. What competing commitment, also yours, is being honoured?
The phrasing: “I am also committed to…”
For “speak up more”: “I am also committed to never saying something I might regret in front of senior people”, or “I am also committed to being seen as thoughtful rather than impulsive”, or “I am also committed to not making my boss look bad by disagreeing publicly.”
The competing commitment usually feels uncomfortable to name, because it is the thing your behaviour is actually serving. Once you see it, the apparent resistance to change makes sense; you are not failing to move, you are succeeding at protecting the competing commitment.
Column 4. Big assumption
Beneath the competing commitment is an assumption you treat as truth without testing. What does the competing commitment assume about the world or about you?
The phrasing: “I assume that if I [violated the competing commitment], then [bad consequence].”
For the speak-up case: “I assume that if I disagree publicly with a senior colleague, then I will be seen as impertinent and lose credibility”, or “I assume that if I share an idea that turns out to be wrong, my reputation as thoughtful is permanently damaged.”
The big assumption is the load-bearing element of the immunity. Until it is tested, the competing commitment runs unchallenged, and the behaviours in column 2 keep happening.
Steps
- Define the improvement goal in column 1. Specific. Yours. Important.
- List the behaviours in column 2. Be honest. The list is a description of what is actually happening, not what you wish was happening.
- Find the hidden competing commitment in column 3. This is where most people stall on the first attempt. Common patterns: protecting safety, protecting belonging, protecting a self-image, protecting a relationship. Push past the first surface answer.
- Name the big assumption in column 4. What is the competing commitment assuming? Make the assumption explicit, in the form “I assume that if X, then Y”.
- Test the big assumption. Design a small, low-risk experiment that would gather evidence on whether the assumption is true. “I will disagree, briefly and respectfully, with one senior colleague in the next two weeks, and observe what happens.”
- Update the map based on the evidence. If the assumption was wrong (or not as severe as you feared), the competing commitment loses its grip. The behaviours in column 2 become easier to change. If the assumption turned out to have some truth, the map gives you new information to plan around.
- Re-run the map periodically. Some immunities are layered. Solving one surfaces another.
Template
| Column 1: Improvement goal | Column 2: Behaviours working against it | Column 3: Hidden competing commitment | Column 4: Big assumption |
|---|---|---|---|
Worked example
Constructed example consistent with the framework, drawn from a typical UN programme context.
A G-7 administrative associate has wanted to apply for a P-2 programme officer role for two years. She has not applied to any.
- Column 1. “I want to apply for the next P-2 programme officer vacancy in my area within three months.”
- Column 2. Behaviours working against it: not opening the vacancy notices when they come out; deciding the timing is wrong each cycle; convincing herself she needs one more year of experience; never starting the achievement bank she has heard about for two years.
- Column 3. Hidden competing commitment: “I am also committed to never receiving a ‘you are not ready’ message from a recruiter.” And: “I am also committed to staying in a role where I have authority through expertise, rather than entering one where I would be the most junior.”
- Column 4. Big assumption: “I assume that if I apply and get rejected, the rejection is a verdict on my worth as a professional, not a single data point. I assume that if I enter a role where I am the least experienced, I will lose the standing I currently have.”
- Test. She designs one experiment: apply to one specific P-2 vacancy with full effort over the next month. Gather actual evidence on what a rejection feels like and what it does to her standing.
The application goes through; she is not selected, but the rejection does not produce the catastrophic loss of standing she feared. The assumption is updated. The next cycle, she applies to two roles. Within nine months, she is in a P-2 role.
The model did not give her the role; it surfaced what was actually keeping her from applying.
Pitfalls
- Stopping after column 2. Column 2 looks like the answer (“here is what I am doing wrong”), but the value is in columns 3 and 4. A map without those is just a guilt list.
- Settling for the first hidden commitment. The first one you name is often a polite version. Push for the version that feels uncomfortable to admit. That is usually the load-bearing one.
- Treating the big assumption as fact. The whole point is that it is an assumption, not a fact. Even if it turns out to have partial truth, surfacing it allows you to design around it.
- Skipping the experiment in step 5. The map is a diagnostic; the change comes from testing. A map that stays in your notebook does not produce change.
- Doing the map alone when honesty is the bottleneck. Some hidden commitments are easier to surface in conversation with a coach or mentor than alone. If you stall on column 3, find a thinking partner.
- Treating the immunity as a personal failing. It is not. The protective pattern is your nervous system doing its job; the model just makes it visible so you can renegotiate it.
When not to use it
When the change you want is small and tactical (a new tool, a different time-management approach). The map is heavy machinery for changes you have failed to make repeatedly; for tactical changes, Tiny Habits Setup is faster.
When the underlying issue is a system constraint rather than an internal pattern. If the reason you cannot move is structural (a hiring freeze, a contract type, a geographic restriction), the immunity map will surface frustration but not solutions.
A note on the source
The Immunity to Change model is original to Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey. The full method appears in their 2009 book Immunity to Change. Chapter 9 includes a self-guided version of the four-column process; the speaker also referenced a podcast conversation between Lisa Lahey and Brené Brown that demonstrates the model in action. The session itself only sketched the model; this page consolidates the speaker’s framing with the published method to make it usable on its own.
How I use it
Personal note pending. Davide to fill.
Related frameworks
- Saboteur Catalog, the parallel lens for protective patterns; immunities and saboteurs often overlap.
- Notice, Pause, Shift, Act, the in-the-moment routine that pairs with longer-arc work like immunity mapping.
- Hand Model of the Brain, the structural reminder of why the protective pattern feels load-bearing.
- Tiny Habits Setup, the lighter tool for tactical changes that do not need the full map.
Notes compiled by Davide Piga. Last updated 2026-05-09.