Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock the Potential in Yourself and Your Organization, by Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey
Think of yourself as a computer. You have an underlying operating system and a bunch of different applications to help you navigate life and work. When you need to expand your skillset, you add a new app or program. But what if you need to make a fundamental change that unlocks a whole new way of thinking and behaving? That’s not just a new app – that’s an update to your entire operating system. If you’ve tried hard to make changes in the past and failed, it’s probably because your operating system was quietly working against you. And you didn’t even know it.
In “Immunity to Change,” Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey peel back the layers of the human brain and offer actionable ways to explore our hidden resistance to change. When we fail despite our best efforts, it’s not because there’s something wrong with us. It’s because we haven’t taken the time to diagnose our operating system and uncover the forces working against us. Chapter 9 offers a tool called the Immunity Map that can be applied to any change you’re trying to make, big or small. Working through the map will help you get out of your own head, observe yourself from a distance and see where you can make big shifts and changes.
– Rachel Gallardo, Managing Director of District Programs
Dare to Lead Podcast: Two-part interview with Lisa Laskow Lahey
Want to experience the Immunity Map in action? In this two-part interview, Lahey coaches Brené Brown through the process and it’s a masterclass on coaching using this research-based approach. It takes listeners through a real-life example from Brown’s professional life that is vulnerable and revelatory. Listen if you’ve set goals for yourself in the new year but have a sneaking suspicion that by the middle of February (or sooner!) they’ll be long gone.
– Sharon Foley, Director of Campus Programs
What You’re Really Meant to Do: A Roadmap for Reaching Your Unique Potential by Robert Steven Kaplan
“If you follow your own path, I don’t know how much money you will accumulate, how much stature you will achieve, or how many titles you will garner. But if you’re true to convictions and principles, I know you’re far more likely to feel like a big success. In the end, that feeling will make all the difference.” Kaplan’s book poses questions that prompt honest self-reflection while providing real life examples that help the reader better understand the root cause of common work-life problems. Kaplan’s anecdotes, insights and leadership principles push readers to think about what success means to them, and how they can set goals to achieve it.
– Bryan Rubio, Director of Development
Who wants to be a teacher?: A four-part podcast series by APM Reports
Why is teacher pay so low in America? How did we get to the point where job conditions are so unsustainable that people are leaving in droves? And what can be done about it? This four-part podcast series from APM Reports explores these questions by examining the present and digging into the past. And man, is the history fascinating. Learning about the origins of the profession and how it evolved (or didn’t) over time helped me understand how we got to this current moment and why it’s so difficult to shift course. One thing is clear – adding more novice teachers to the pipeline simply to burn them out is not a solution that will serve anyone in the long run – not educators, not students, not parents, not society at large. We must find a way to elevate the profession and improve working conditions if we expect to provide a free public education to every child in the nation, much less improve outcomes for students.
– Melissa Ludwig, Senior Communications Manager
Hidden Brain Podcast with Shankar Vedantam
Hidden Brain is a podcast that “explores the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior and questions that lie at the heart of our complex and changing world.” I listen when I go on walks and always learn something insightful and fascinating about how our minds work, and what implications that holds for how we navigate life and relationships, both professionally and personally. Complex research is broken down in clear and creative ways so I always feel like I’ve learned something that I can apply to my life without exhausting my brain in the process. One episode in particular, “Both Things Can Be True,” really resonated with me as a person who believes there is often enormous complexity in how to be “good” or make “right” decisions.
– Marina Lin, Managing Director of Campus Programs
