Preface & Intro

Welcome to our first two discussion posts about the Immunity to Change book.  This week we have two posts just to keep things neat and orderly.  The preface and intro are covered in this post.  Chapter 1 is covered in our second post.

Don't feel as though you need to limit your comments to the points in the book I pick up on.  I, as I'm sure our other guest facilitators, will pick out the points and craft discussion topics that have the most meaning to us.  You should add in the comments the points and questions that are of interest to you.

Let's dig right into the preface.  A few quotes/lines that really spoke to me:

• "Building on our colleague Ronald Heifetz's heuristic distinction between "technical" and "adaptive" challenges, we can say that some personal-change goals - especially those we know we must accomplish but still cannot - require that we ourselves 'get bigger'; that is, we must adapt in order to accomplish them." - p. xii
• Keeping in that same context..."...the change challenges today's leaders and their subordinates face are not, for the most part, a problem of will.  The problem is the inability to close the gap between what we genuinely, even passionately, want and what we are actually able  to do." - p. 2
• I also found the section that begins on p.2 entitled "Three Problems Create the Context for this Book" to be very thought provoking overall.  The paragraph on page 3 that talks about our public optimism vs. our private pessimism really resonates with me.

So, as we get set to dive into Part 1 of the book, let's start our discussion with the following.  Remember - this is just a suggestion of where to start...you take the discussion in other directions!

1. When has your technical learning let you down and you realize that what you really need is an adaptive change?  As an alternative, what is something you've passionately wanted to do by been unable to do.
2. Is there an area of change you're facing now where your publicly stated optimism doesn't match up with your private pessimism?  What is it and why do you think you're feeling so disjointed on this topic?