Robery Kegan and Lisa Lahey found this immunity works against our best-efforts to follow through on plans.

Kegan and Lahey’s work dovetails nicely with Pfeffer and Sutton’s knowing-doing gap. In their book, Immunity to Change, they identify hidden commitments that get in the way of our ability to work on our goals. Weight loss is a good example of this. Tabloids give us new diets every week. We know that human physiology hasn’t changed since last Thursday, but we still hope that there might be some new finding that makes losing weight easy. These quick-fix solutions mask a deeper problem and that’s our built-in immunity to change. Even though we say we want to lose X pounds, we have an equally strong commitment to a way of eating and living that works against this goal. Only when we dig deep and find other (maybe unconscious) goals can we even think about losing weight. For example, I don’t want to give up pancakes, beer, sundaes, burgers, and pork rinds (just to pick a hypothetical example).

Same thing applies in organizational change. A leader may say that he wants to get people involved in planning a major new project, but he also wants to keep control over what happens.

Although they found organizations that did turn knowledge into action, more often they found that, “Other organizations composed of intelligent, thoughtful, hard-working, nice people, fail to translate their knowledge about organizational performance into action. It is almost as if there were some kind of brain vacuum in those firms that sucks the wisdom and insight out of their people.” The Knowing Doing Gap, page 6).

And they point out they in most cases it is not the people who are at fault.

I just did an Amazon search on “change management” and got 1344 hits. With all this knowledge, why don’t we do better?

We’ve got more theories and four-square consulting models than we need. Somewhere, there is a denuded forest with a placard that reads, “These trees died happily so that millions of pages of books, articles, assessment tools, and printouts of PowerPoint slides on change management could enter large organizations and rest comfortably as shelfware.”

In my own work with clients, many (maybe most) know what it takes to lead change well. And yet, something gets in the way.

It’s like there is a secret society of people who lead change and all members must agree to abide by The Big Book of Rules for Leading Change.  Here are a couple.

Never, but never, allow emotions into meetings. It is a sign of weakness. If people react emotionally to a change something must be wrong with them. As the comedian Emo Philips said, “real men don’t have souls.”

Whatever idea you come up with is good (because you are the leader after all and you grew up in a generation where your parents told you could do no wrong), therefore others better get with the program and find out where you hid that cheese today.

The Mad Hatter got it right when he said, “I’m late, I’m late for a very important date. No time to say hello, good-by, I’m late, I’m late.” Translation: no time to get people involved.

And this list could go on. Of course, most leaders would scoff at that list, but when you watch them (and us) in action, those rules sure look like they are alive and well, don’t they?

You can also access their free e-book at the Change Management Open Source Project as well.

Air New Zealand posted a safety video on YouTube and 3,305,548 people have viewed it so far.

This is the same safety announcement that all of us hear every week on flights. So why would so many people view this video? Simple: The airline employees giving the safety announcement are all naked. Their uniforms are painted onto their bodies. So, that information should be enough to get some of you to click on the video in anticipation, and others to click on with utter disgust. Either way, it gets you to watch.

Click here to view video

Their video got me thinking about corporate presentations. People file into a room as cramped as economy seats on a flight. And almost the instant that the lights dim and the first slide appears on the screen, the audience tunes out. Don’t believe me? Look around you at the next meeting you go to. (Or, perhaps you’re reading this during one of those deadly presentations right now.)

What Air New Zealand (and Southwest Air found by given flight attendants freedom to be creative when they present safety information) was that people pay attention to things that are novel, entertaining, and worth telling others about.

I am not suggesting naked executives. Believe me, I am definitely not suggesting that.  But as we prepare our next presentations, imagine how Air New Zealand’s might handle it.

I am a fan of Cialdini’s work on influence, and I his six categories can be helpful in making a case for a new idea.  Zhuang shows how those same powerful psychological forces can be used to manipulate us.