Ever been asked to lead a big AI initiative or hired to build an AI team, only to have leadership shoot down every request for change or investment?
It’s beyond frustrating. You’re probably thinking, why did they even bring me in if they don’t care about this? When it comes to driving real change, you need leadership to care, to make a commitment, and to invest. But here’s the kicker—it’s not enough.
This pattern—AI/ML leaders being hired and then prevented from driving change—is not only frustrating, it’s common. They don’t get the support they need, which causes projects to stall or fail entirely. it’s not that the organization doesn’t care about AI—there’s something deeper going on. Something hidden. And if you can figure out what it is, you can address it and finally start making the impact you were hired to make.
I remember the moment I learned about this, I was driving over the Roosevelt bridge in to Washington, D.C. listening to Lisa Lahey on Brene Brown's Dare to Lead podcast and all of a sudden the friction and frustration I had experienced as a consultant made sense.
The Hidden Force Blocking Change
“So even though we can have very wise wishes and intentions for our aspirations, if we don’t get this other piece into the equation of what else is going on simultaneously, we will remain kind of stuck or we might inch our way, make a little bit of progress and then back we go.” - Lisa Lahey, Co-author or Immunity to Change and Harvard Lecturer on Adult Development
For AI leaders, this means that the people you’re working with have likely been on the job long enough to develop these self-protective behaviors. And if you want them to act differently—think differently, work differently, make new kinds of investments—you have to address this underlying resistance. Without this, your AI transformation efforts will struggle.
Examples of Competing Commitments
Your goal is to foster innovation, but your fear of failure holds you back.
You want to ship features faster, but a culture of perfectionism keeps the team refining and polishing
Your goal is to improve collaboration across teams, but fear of losing autonomy or relevance
You want to delegate decision-making to teams but fear of them making the wrong choices prevents you from letting go
These hidden fears are what hold organizations back from embracing AI fully, even though they say they’re all in. You can understand this by looking at an Immunity to Change Map.
Stated Commitment | What am I doing or not doing, that is keeping my stated commitment from being fully realized | Competing Commitment | Big assumption |
I want to ask for a salary increase | I avoid scheduling the meeting I sort of mention but don’t ask directly I tell myself it’s not the right time | Avoiding conflict with stakeholders. | I assume that the boss will deny my request and I’ll feel rejected |
How to Uncover What’s Holding Your Leadership Team Back
Lahey and Robert Kegan’s Immunity to Change framework offers a powerful way to identify the forces that hold us back from achieving desired change. Here’s how an AI leader can apply this framework in their organization:
Identify Your Goal
What specific improvement or change are you trying to achieve? Focus on a clear, concrete objective, like getting approval for a new AI initiative.
What Are You Doing (or Not Doing) Instead?
List the actions (or inactions) that are blocking progress. Focus on observable behaviors rather than guessing what people might be thinking or feeling.
Identify the Competing Commitment
This step requires conversation. You’ll need to dig deeper to uncover what’s holding people back. Consider asking these questions:
“It sounds like you might have some reservations—what’s really going on here?”
“If this change went exactly as planned, what’s the downside?”
“Why haven’t we tackled this head-on yet? What are we missing?”
“What else might be pulling your attention or investment away from this?”
“What do you fear might happen if we made this a priority?”
“What are we protecting ourselves from by holding back?”
“If we did nothing, what’s the worst-case scenario?”
Keep an open mind and use active listening (mirrors and labels) to deepen the conversation and gather more insight.
Challenge the Big Assumption
Every competing commitment is driven by an underlying assumption about how things work. Once you identify this assumption, you can test it through small experiments. This process helps people see whether their assumption holds true and opens the door to meaningful change.Understanding where someone is coming from will dramatically improve relationships, but change doesn’t happen overnight. This is just the starting point.
Building AI and ML capabilities requires a fundamental shift in how people think and act, which can be intimidating. Long-standing skills and behaviors are suddenly being questioned, triggering defensive responses—much like how your immune system reacts to something unfamiliar, even if it’s not a threat.
Competing commitments are often at the heart of stalled change efforts. By understanding and addressing these dynamics, you can help your organization unlock the full potential of AI.
I’m here to help. Let me know what challenges you’re facing, what’s working, and how I can support you in making progress.
Image: This looked amazing when I first poured it but dried all shrively :(
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