HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW

People Won't Change
Ifs a psychological dynamic called a "competing commitment" and until managers understand how it works and the ways to overcome it, they can't do a thing about change-resistant employees.

The Real Reason by Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey

E

VERY MANAGER is familiar with the employee who just won't change. Sometimes it's easy to see whythe employee fears a shift in power, the need to learn new skills, the stress of having to join a new team. In other cases, such resistance is far more puzzling. An employee has the skills and smarts to make a change with ease, has shown a deep commitment to the company, genuinely supports the change-and yet, inexplicably, does nothing. What's going on? As organizational psychologists, we have seen this dynamic literally hundreds of times, and our research and analysis have recently led us to a surprising yet deceptively simple conclusion. Resistance

to change does not reflect opposition, nor is it merely a result of inertia. Instead, even as they hold a sincere commitment to change, many people are unwittingly applying productive energy toward a hidden cornpeting commitment The resulting dynamic equilibrium stalls the effort in what looks like resistance but is in fact a kind of personal immunity to change. When you, as a manager, uncover an employee's competing commitment, behavior that has seemed irrational and ineffective suddenly becomes stunningly sensible and masterful-but unfortunately, on behalf of a goal that conflicts with what you and even the employee are trying to achieve. You find out that the project leader who's
85

NOVEMBER 2001

The Real Reason People Won't Change

dragging his feet has an unrecognized competing commitment to avoid the even tougher assignment-one he fears he can't handle-that might come his way next if he delivers too successfully on the task at hand. Or you find that the person who won't collaborate despite a passionate and sincere commitment to teamwork is equally dedicated to avoiding the conflict that naturally attends any ambitious team activity. In these pages, we'll look at competing commitments in detail and take you through a process to help your employees overcome their immunity to change. The process may sound straightforward, but it is by no means quick or easy. On the contrary, it challenges the very psychological foundations upon which people function. It asks people to call into question beliefs they've long held close, perhaps since childhood. And it requires people to admit to

Shoveling Sand Against the Tide
Competing commitments cause valued employees to behave in ways that seem inexplicable and irremediable, and this is enormously frustrating to managers. Take the case of John, a talented manager at a software company. (Like all examples in this article, John's experiences are real, although we have altered identifying features. In some cases, we've constructed composite examples.) John was a big believer in open communication and valued close working relationships, yet his caustic sense of humor consistently kept colleagues at a distance. And though he wanted to move up in the organization, his personal style was holding him back. Repeatedly, John was counseled on his behavior, and he readily agreed that he needed to change the way he interacted with others in the organization. But time after time, he reverted to his old patterns. Why, his boss wondered, did John continue to undermine his own advancement? As it happened, John was a person of color working as part of an otherwise all-white executive team. When he went through an exercise designed to help him unearth his competing commitments, he made a surprising discovery about himself Underneath it all, John believed that if he became too well integrated with the team, it would threaten his sense of loyalty to his own racial group. Moving too close to the mainstream made him feel very uncomfortable, as if he were becoming"one of them" and betraying his family and friends. So when people gathered around his ideas and suggestions, he'd tear down their support with sarcasm, inevitably (and effectively) returning himself to the margins, where he was more at ease. In short, while John was genuinely committed to working well with his colleagues, he had an equally powerful competing commitment to keeping his distance. Consider, too, a manager we'll call Helen, a rising star at a large manufacturing company. Helen had been assigned responsibility for speeding up production of the company's most popular product, yet she was spinning her wheels. When her boss, Andrew, realized that an important deadline was only two months away and she hadn't filed a single progress report, he called her into a meeting to discuss the project. Helen agreed that she was far behind schedule, acknowledging that she had been stalling in pulling together the team. But at the same time she showed a genuine commitment to making the project a success. The two developed a detailed plan for changing direction, and Andrew assumed the problem was resolved. But three weeks after the meeting, Helen still hadn't launched the team.

Helping people overcoine their limitations to become more successful at work is at the very heart of effective management. painful, even embarrassing, feelings that they would not ordinarily disclose to others or even to themselves. Indeed, some people will opt not to disrupt their immunity to change, choosing instead to continue their fruitless struggle against their competing commitments. As a manager, you must guide people through this exercise with understanding and sensitivity. If your employees are to engage in honest introspection and candid disclosure, they must understand that their revelations won't be used against them. The goal of this expioration is solely to help them become more effective, not to find fiaws in their work or character. As you support your employees in unearthing and challenging their innermost assumptions, you may at times feel you're playing the role of a psychologist. But in a sense, managers are psychologists. After all, helping people overcome their limitations to become more successful at work is at the very heart of effective management. We'll describe this delicate process in detail, but first let's look at some examples of competing commitments in action.

Robert Kegan is the William and Miriam Meehan Professor of Adult Learning and Professional Development and Lisa Laskow Lahey is the research director of the Change Leadership Group at the Harvard University Graduate School of Education in Cambridge, Massachusetts. They are the coauthors of How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way Why was Helen unable to change her behavior? After We Work (Jossey-BassAViley, 2001) and the founding princi- intense self-examination in a workshop with several of pals of Minds at Work (www.windsatwork.com), a consult- her colleagues, she came to an unexpected conclusion: Alingfirm based in Lexington, Massachusetts. though she truly wanted the project to succeed, she had an 86
HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW

The Real Reason People Won't Change

accompanying, unacknowledged commitment to maintaining a subordinate position in relation to Andrew. At a deep level, Helen was concerned that if she succeeded in her new role-one she was excited about and eager to undertake - she would become more a peer than a subordinate. She was uncertain whether Andrew was prepared for the turn their relationship would take. Worse, a promotion would mean that she, not Andrew, would be ultimately accountable for the results of her work-and Helen feared she wouldn't be up to the task. These stories shed some light on the nature of immunity to change. The inconsistencies between John's and Helen's stated goals and their actions refiect neither hypocrisy nor unspoken reluctance to change but the paralyzing effect of competing commitments. Any manager who seeks to help John communicate more effectively or Helen move her project forward, without understanding that each is also struggling unconsciously toward an opposing agenda, is shoveling sand against the tide.

making real progress toward overcoming immunity to change unfolds over a longer period-weeks or even months. But just getting the commitments on the table can have a noticeable effect on the decisions people make and the actions they take.

Uncovering Competing Commitments
Overcoming immunity to change starts with imcovering competing commitments. In our work, we've found that even though people keep their competing commitments well hidden, you can draw them out by asking a series of questions - as long as the employees believe that personal and potentially embarrassing disclosures won't be used inappropriately. It can be very powerful to guide people through this diagnostic exercise in a group -typically with several volunteers making their own discoveries publicso people can see that others, even the company's star performers, have competing commitments and inner contradictions of their own.

The first question we ask is, What would you like to see changed at work, so that you could be more effective or so that work would be more satisfying? Responses to this question are nearly always couched in a complaint-a form of communication that most managers bemoan because of its negative, unproductive tone. But complaints can be immensely useful. People complain only about the things they care about, and they complain the loudest about the things they care about most. With little effort, people can turn their familiar, uninspiring gripes into something that's more likely to energize and motivate t h e m - a commitment, genuinely their own. To get there, you need to ask a second question: What commitments does your complaint imply? A project leader we worked with, we'll call him Tom, had grumbled,"My subordinates keep me out of the loop Employees are almost always tremendously relieved on important developments in when they discover just why they feel as if they are rolling my project." This complaint yielded the statement, "I bea boulder up a hill only to have it roll back down again. lieve in open and candid communication." A line manager what's getting in the way of change. First, managers guide we'll call Mary lamented people's unwillingness to speak employees through a set of questions designed to uncover up at meetings; her complaint implied a commitment to competing commitments. Next, employees examine these shared decision making. commitments to determine the underlying assumptions While undoubtedly sincere in voicing such commitat their core. And finally, employees start the process of ments, people can nearly always identify some way in changing their behavior. which they are in part responsible for preventing them from being fulfilled. Thus, the third question is: What are We'll walk through the process fairly quickly below, you doing, or not doing, that is keeping your commitment but it's important to note that each step will take time. from being more fully realized? Invariably, in our experiJust uncovering the competing commitment will require ence, people can identity these undermining behaviors in at least two or three hours, because people need to reflect just a couple of seconds. For example, Tom admitted: on each question and the implications of their answers. "When people bring me bad news, 1 tend to shoot the The process of challenging competing commitments and Competing commitments aren't distressing only to the boss; they're frustrating to employees as well. People with the most sincere intentions often unwittingly create for themselves Sisyphean tasks. And they are almost always tremendously relieved when they discover just why they feel as if they are rolling a boulder up a hill only to have it roll back down again. Even though uncovering a competing commitment can open up a host of new concerns, the discovery offers hope for finally accomplishing the primary, stated commitment. Based on the past 15 years of working with hundreds of managers in a variety of companies, we've developed a three-stage process to help organizations figure out
NOVEMBER 2 0 0 1

Diagnosing Immunity to Change

87

The Real Reason People Won't Change

messenger." And Mary acknowledged that she didn't delegate much and that she sometimes didn't release all the information people needed in order to make good decisions. In both cases, there may well have been other circumstances contributing to the shortfalls, but clearly both Tom and Mary were engaging in behavior that was affecting the people around them. Most people recognize this about themselves right away and are quick to say, "I need to stop doing that." Indeed, Tom had repeatedly vowed to listen more openly to potential problems that would slow his projects. However, the purpose of this exercise is not to make these behaviors disappear-at least not now. The purpose is to understand why people behave in ways that undermine their own success. The next step, then, is to invite people to consider the consequences of forgoing the behavior. We do this by asking a fourth question: If you imagine doing the opposite of the undermining behavior, do you detect in yourself any discomfort, worry, or vague fear? Tom imagined himself listening calmly and openly to some bad news about a project and concluded,"rm afraid I'll hear about a problem that I can't fix, something that I can't do anything about." And Mary? She considered allowing people more latitude and realized that, quitefrankly,she feared people wouldn't make good decisions and she would be forced to carry out a strategy she thought would lead to an inferior result The final step is to transform that passive fear into a statement that reflects an active commitment to preventing certain outcomes. We ask. By engaging in this undermining behavior, what worrisome outcome are you committed to preventing? The resulting answer is the competing commitment, which lies at the very heart of a person's immunity to change. Tom admitted,"I am committed to not learning about problems 1 can't fix." By intimidating his staff, he prevented them from delivering bad news, prt> tecting himself from the fear that he was not in control of the project. Mary, too, was protecting herself- in her case, against the consequences of bad decisions."l am committed to making sure my group does not make decisions that I don't like." Such revelations can feel embarrassing. While primary commitments nearly always reflect noble goals that people would be happy to shout from the rooftops, competing commitments are very personal, refiecting vulnerabilities that people fear will undermine how they are regarded both by others and themselves. Little wonder people keep them hidden and hasten to cover them up again once they're on the table. But competing commitments should not be seen as weaknesses. They represent some version of self-protection, a perfectly natural and reasonable human impulse. The question is, if competing commitments are a form of self-protection, what are people protecting themselves from? The answers usually lie in what we call their big assumptions - deeply rooted beliefs about themselves and

the world around them. These assumptions put an order to the world and at the same time suggest ways in which the world can go out of order. Competing commitments arise from these assumptions, driving behaviors unwittingly designed to keep the picture intact.

Examining the Big Assumption
People rarely realize they hold big assumptions because, quite simply, they accept them as reality. Often formed long ago and seldom, if ever, critically examined, big assumptions are woven into the very fabric of people's existence. (For more on the grip that big assumptions hold on people, see the sidebar "Big Assumptions: How Our Perceptions Shape Our Reality.") But with a little help, most people can call them up fairly easily, especially once they've identified their competing commitments. To do this, we first ask people to create the beginning of a sentence by inverting the competing commitment, and then we ask them to fill in the blank. For Tom ("I am committed to not hearing about problems I can't fix"), the big assumption turned out to be, "1 assume that if I did hear about problems I can'tfix,people would discover I'm not qualified to do my job." Mary's big assumption was that her teammates weren't as smart or experienced as she and that she'd be wasting her time and others' if she didn't maintain control. Returning to our earlier story, John's big assumption might be, "I assume that if I develop unambivalent relationships with my white coworkers, I will sacrifice my racial identity and alienate my own community." This is a difficult process, and it doesn't happen all at once, because admitting to big assumptions makes people uncomfortable. The process can put names to very personal feelings people are reluctant to disclose, such as deep-seated fears or insecurities, highly discouraging or simplistic views of human nature, or perceptions of their own superior abilities or intellect. Unquestioning acceptance of a big assumption anchors and sustains an immune system: A competing commitment makes all the sense in the world, and the person continues to engage in behaviors that support it, albeit unconsciously, to the detriment of his or her "official," stated commitment. Only by bringing big assumptions to light can people finally challenge their assumptions and recognize why they are engaging in seemingly contradictory behavior.

Questioning the Big Assumption
Once people have identified their competing commitments and the big assumptions that sustain them, most are prepared to take some immediate action to overcome their immunity. But the first part of the process involves observation, not action, which can be frustrating for high achievers accustomed to leaping into motion to solve problems. Let's take a look at the steps in more detail.
HARVARD BUSENESS REVIEW

The Real Reason People Won't Change

A Diagnostic Test for Immunity to Change
The most important steps in diagnosing immunity to change are uncovering employees'competing commitments and unearthing their hig assumptions. To do so, we ask a series of questions and record key responses in a simple grid. Below we've listed the responses for six people who went through this exercise, including the examples described in the text. The grid paints a picture of the change-immunity system, making sense of a previously puzzling dynamic.

Stated commitment

/am committed to...

What am 1 doing, or not doing, that is keeping my stated commitment from being fully realized?

Competing commitments 1 am committed to maintaining a distance from my white colleagues.

Big assumptions 1 assume 1 will lose my authentic connection to my racial group if 1 get too integrated into the mainstream,

John

...high quality Sometimes 1 use sarcastic communication humor to get my point across. with my colleagues.

1
Helen ... the new initiative.
1 don't push for top performance from my team members or myself; 1 accept mediocre products and thinking too often; 1 don't prioritize. 1 am committed to not upsetting my relationship with my boss by leaving the mentee role.

i i assume my boss will stop supporting me if 1 move toward becoming his peer; 1 assume that 1 don't have what it takes to successfully carry out a cutting-edge project. 1 assume as a leader 1 should be able to address all problems; 1 assume 1 will be seen as incompetent if 1 can't solve all problems that come up.

Tom

...hearing from my subordinates and maximizing the flow of information into my office.

i don't ask questions or ask to be kept in the loop on sensitive or delicate matters; 1 shoot the messenger when 1 hear bad news.

1 am committed to not learning about things 1 can't do anything about.

Mary

...distributed leadership by enabling people to make decisions.

1 don't delegate enough; i don't pass on the necessary information to the people 1 distribute leadership to.

1 am committed to having things go my way to being in controland to ensuring that the work is done to my high standards.

1 assume that other people will waste my time and theirs if 1 don't step in; (assume others aren't as smart as i am,

1

Bill

...being a team player.

1 don't collaborate enough; 1 make unilateral decisions too often; 1 don't really take people's input into account.

1 am committed to being the one who gets the credit and to avoiding the frustration or conflict that comes with collaboration.

1 assume that no one will appreciate me if 1 am not seen as the source of success; 1 assume nothing good will come of my being frustrated or in conflict.

Jane

...turning around my department.

Too often 1 let things slide; I'm not proactive enough in getting people to follow through with their tasks.

1 am committed to not setting full sail until 1 have a clear map of how we get our department from here to there.

1 assume that if 1 take my group out into deep waters and discover 1 am unable to get us to the other side. 1 will be seen as an incompetent leader who is undeserving of trust or responsibility

NOVEMBER 2001

89

The Real Reason People Won't Change

data. By asking people to search specifically for experiences that would cause them to question their big assumptions, we help them see that they have been filtering out certain types of informationinformation that could weaken the grip of the big asstunptions. When John looked around him, he considered for the first time that an AfricanAmerican manager in another department had strong working relationships with her mostly white colleagues, yet seemed not to have compromised her personal identity. He also had to admit that when he had been thrown onto an urgent task force the year before, he had worked many hours alongside his white colleagues and had found the experience satisfying; he had felt none of his usual ambivalence. Step 3: Explore the history. In this step, we invite people to become the "biographers"of their big assumptions: How and when did the assumptions first take hold? How long have they been around? What have been some of their critical turning points? Typically, this step leads people to earlier life experiences, almost always to times before their current jobs and relationships with current coworkers. This reflection usually makes people feel dissatisfied with the foundations of their big assumptions, especially when they see that these ideas have accompanied them to their current ptv sitions and have been coloring their experiences Because big assumptions are held as fact, they actually inform what people see. leading them to systematically (but unconsciously) attend for many years. Recently, a CEO expressed astonto certain data and avoid or ignore other data. ishment as she realized she'd been applying the same self-protective stance in her work that she'd developed during a difficult divorce years before, just as Step 1: Notice and record current behavior. Emcommonly, as was the case for John, people trace their big ployees must first take notice of what does and doesn't assumptions to early experiences with parents, siblings, or happen as a consequence of holding big assumptions to friends. Understanding the circumstances that influenced be true. We specifically ask people not to try to make any the formation of the assumptions can free people to conchanges in their thinking or behavior at this time but just sider whether these beliefs apply to their present selves. to become more aware of their actions in relation to their Step 4: Test the assumption. This step entails creating big assumptions. This gives people the opportunity to deand running a modest test of the big assumption. This is velop a better appreciation for how and in what contexts the first time we ask people to consider making changes big assumptions infiuence their lives. John, for example, in their behavior. Each employee should come up with a who had assumed that working well with his white colscenario and run it by a partner who serves as a sounding leagues would estrange him from his ethnic group, saw board. (Left to their own devices, people tend to create that he had missed an opportunity to get involved in an tests that are either too risky or so tentative that they exciting, high-profile initiative because he had mocked the don't actually challenge the assumption and in fact reafidea when it first came up in a meeting. firm its validity.) After conferring with a partner, John, for Step 2: Look for contrary evidence. Next, employees instance, volunteered to join a short-term committee must look actively for experiences that might cast doubt looking at his department's process for evaluating new on the validity of their big assumptions. Because big product ideas. Because the team would dissolve after a assumptions are held as fact, they actually inform what month, he would be able to extricate himself fairly people see, leading them to systematically (but unconquickly if he grew too uncomfortable with the relationsciously) attend to certain data and avoid or ignore other 90
HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW

The Real Reason People Won't Change

ships. But the experience would force him to spend a significant amount of time with several of his white colleagues during that month and would provide him an opportunity to test his sense of the real costs of being a full team member. Step 5: Evaluate the results. In the last step, employees evaluate the test results, evaluate the test itself, design and run new tests, and eventually question the big assumptions. For John, this meant signing up for other initiatives and making initial social overtures to wbite coworkers. At the same time, by engaging in volunteer efforts within his community outside of work, he made sure that his ties to his racial group were not compromised. It is worth noting that revealing a big assumption doesn't necessarily mean it will be exposed as false. But even if a big assumption does contain an element of truth, an individual can often find more effective ways to operate once he or she has had a chance to challenge the assumption and its hold on his or her behavior. Indeed, John found a way to support the essence of his competing

commitment-to maintain his bond with his racial group-while minimizing behavior that sabotaged his other stated commitments.

Uncovering Your Own Immunity
As you go through this process with your employees, remember that managers are every bit as susceptible to change immunity as employees are, and your competing commitments and big assumptions can have a significant impact on the people around you. Returning once more to Helen's story: When we went through this exercise with her boss, Andrew, it turned out that he was harboring some contradictions of his own. While he was committed to the success of bis subordinates, Andrew at some level assumed that he alone could meet his high standards, and as a result he was laboring under a competing commitment to maintain absolute control over his projects. He was unintentionally communicating this lack of confidence to his subordinates-including Helen-in subtle

Big Assumptions: How Our Perceptions Shape Our Reality
Big assumptions reflect the very human manner in which we inventor shape a picture of the world and then take our inventions for reality. This is easiest to see In children. The delight we take in their charming distortions is a kind of celebration that they are actively making sense of the world, even ifa bit eccentrically. As one story goes, two youngsters had been learning about Hindu culture and were taken with a representation of the universe in which the world sits atop 3 giant elephant, and the elephant sits atop an even more giant turtle. "I wonder what the turtle sits on," says one of the children. "I think from then on," says the other,"it's turtles all the way down." But deep within our amusement may lurk a note of condescension, an implication that this is what distinguishes children from grown-ups. Their meaning-making is subject to youthful distortions, we assume. Ours represents an accurate map of reality. But does it? Are we really finished discovering, once we have reached adulthood, that our maps don't match the territory? The answer is clearly no. In our 20 years of longitudinal and cross-sectional research, we've discovered that adults must grow into and out of several qualitatively different views of the world if they are to master the challenges of their life experiences {see Robert Kegan, In Over Our Heads, Harvard University Press, 1994). A woman we met from Australia told us about her experience living in the United States for a year."Not only do you drive on the wrong side of the street over here," she said,"your steering wheels are on the wrong side, too. I would routinely pile into the right side of the car to drive off, only to discover I needed to get out and walk over to the other side. "One day," she continued,"! was thinking about six different things, and I got into the right side of the car, took out my keys, and was prepared to drive off. I looked up and thought to myself,'My God, here in the violent and lawless United States, they are even stealing steer/ng wheels!'" Of course, the countervailing evidence wasjust an arm's length to her left, but-and this is the main pointwhy should she look? Our big assumptions create a disarming and deluding sense of certainty. If we know where a steering wheel belongs, we are unlikely to look for it some place else. If we know what our company, department, boss, or subordinate can and can't do, why should we look for countervailing data-even if it is just an arm's length away?

NOVEMBER 2001

91

The Real Reason People Won't Change

Getting Groups to Change
Although competing commitments and big assumptions tend to be deeply personal, groups are just as susceptible as individuals to the dynamics of immunity to change. Face-to-face teams, departments, and even companies as a whole can fall prey to inner contradictions that "protect" them from significant changes they may genuinely strive for. The leadership team of a video production company, for instance, enjoyed a highly collaborative, largely flat organizational structure. A year before we met the group, team members had undertaken a planning process that led them to a commitment of which they were unanimously in favor: In order to ensure that the company would grow in the way the team wished, each of the principals would take responsibility for aggressively overseeing a distinct market segment. The members of the leadership team told us they came out of this process with a great deal of momentum. They knew which markets to target, they had formed some concrete plans for moving forward, and they had clearly assigned accountability for each market. Yet a year later, the group had to admit it had accomplished very little, despite the enthusiasm. There vi/ere lots of rational explanations: "We were unrealistic; we thought we could do new things and still have time to keep meeting our present obligations." "We didn't pursue new clients aggressively enough.""We tried new things but gave uptooquicktyiftheydidn't immediately payoff" Efforts to overcome these barriers-to pursue clients more aggressively, for instance-didn't work because they didn't get to the cause of the unproductive behavior. But by seeing the team's explanations as a potential window into the bigger competing commitment, we were able to help the group better understand its predicament. We asked, "Can you identify even the vaguest fear or worry about what might happen \f you did more aggressively pursue the nev*^ markets? Or if you reduced some of your present activity on behalf of building the nevi/business?" Before long, a difi^rent discourse began to emerge, and the other half of a striking groupwide contradiction came into view: The principals were worried that pursuing the plan would drive them apart functionally and emotionally. "We now realize we are also committed to preserving the noncompetitive, intellectually rewarding, and cocreative spirit of our corporate enterprise," they concluded. On behalf of this commitment, the team members had to commend themselves on how "noncompetitively" and "cocreatively" they were finding ways to undermine the strategic plans they still believed were the best route to the company's future success. The team's big assumptlons?"We assumed that pursuing the target-market strategy, with each of us taking aggressive responsibility for a given segment, would create the 'silos' we have long happily avoided and v^^ould leave us more isolated from one another. We also assumed the strategy would make us more competitively disposed toward one another." Whether or not the assumptions were true, they would have continued to block the group's efforts until they were brought to light. In fact, as the group came to discover,there were a variety of moves that would allow the leadership team to preserve a genuinely collaborative collegiality while pursuing the new corporate strategy.

ways. In the end, Andrew's and Helen's competing commitments were, without their knowledge, mutually reinforcing, keeping Helen dependent on Andrew and allowing Andrew to control her projects. Helen and Andrew are still working through this process, but they've already gained invaluable insight into their behavior and the ways they are impeding their own progress. This may seem like a small step, but bringing these issues to the surface and confronting them head-on is challenging and painful-yet tremendously effective. It allows managers to see, at last, what's really going on when people who are genuinely committed to change nonetheless dig in their heels. It's not about identifying 92

unproductive behavior and systematically making plans to correct it, as if treating symptoms would cure a disease. It's not about coaxing or cajoling or even giving poor performance reviews. It's about understanding the complexities of people's behavior, guiding them through a productive process to bring their competing commitments to the surface, and helping them cope with the inner conflict that is preventing them from achieving their goals. '0 Reprint ROIIOE
To order reprints, see the last page of Executive Summaries.

To further explore the topic of this article, go to www. hbr.org/explore.
HARVARD BUSiNBSS REVIEW