The 14th-century Japanese monk Musō Soseki, one of the great Zen garden designers, believed that a troubled mind doesn't need more instruction — it needs friction removed. He called this 'clearing the ground before planting,' and it shows up not just in his famous dry gardens but in how he advised students: stop adding practices, start subtracting obstacles. What's striking is that the organizational psychologist Robert Kegan — working six centuries later and thousands of miles away — landed in almost exactly the same place. In his 'immunity to change' research, Kegan found that most people don't fail to grow because they lack motivation or knowledge; they fail because they're running hidden competing commitments that silently cancel out every forward effort. The garden and the psychology lab agree: before you push harder, look at what's quietly pushing back. Today, if there's something you keep meaning to do but don't, the question probably isn't how to try harder. It's what assumption or hidden priority is secretly making sure you don't.

What is the one commitment you openly claim — at work or in how you lead — that another commitment you never speak about is actively undermining?

Drawing from Japanese Zen Buddhism combined with Constructive Developmental Psychology — Musō Soseki (Rinzai Zen, 14th c.) and Robert Kegan (Immunity to Change, 2009)