The Real Reason People Won’t Change

I really enjoyed a Harvard Business review article on the “competing commitment” between what people say they want/ believe in and their actions. Often there are untrue limiting assumptions which they are living believing them to be true.
For example one board member claimed he wanted to aggressively grow the business, yet his actions kept his department’ profits and sales strong but static for 3 years. In reality he wanted to keep the high quality relationships with his clients. He feared accelerated, aggressive growth with make his into a volume “stack them high and sell them cheap” business. He didn’t want to be associated with that.

So identify with your coach what are your big assumptions which make your rhetoric and reality conflict. Then take action and check if the assumptions are really true. Replace them with true and liberating assumptions (see the “time to think” techniques).

Refers to HBR article Nov 2001 Kegan and Lahey

Good luck. Jonathan Perks