The Immune System That Kills Every Transformation | John Hagel, Human+Tech Week 2026

Every large organization has an immune system. When change appears, antibodies mobilize to crush it. And they are not driven by bad people, they are driven by fear. John Hagel delivered this keynote at Human+Tech Week in San Francisco, May 2026, on a day focused on how AI can expand human agency. His argument: the hardest part of transformation is not the technology. It is the emotion moving through the people who have to carry it out. Drawing on four decades of work across McKinsey, Deloitte, and Silicon Valley, John explains why fear is a rational response to mounting performance pressure, what fear costs an organization once it takes hold, and which emotion is powerful enough to replace it. He introduces the Passion of the Explorer, a specific form of passion found in environments where performance improves year after year, and shares research finding that at most 14% of US workers have it. He closes with a question worth sitting with: if the mark of a strong leader has always been having every answer, what happens when the world changes faster than any single person can keep up with? ABOUT THE CENTER FOR GROWTH The Center for Growth helps leaders, teams, and anyone held back by fear move toward focused action and meaningful impact. We run live, interactive workshops built on John Hagel’s three-pillar framework, in groups small enough that everyone gets heard. Intro sessions this September, 60 minutes, limited to 30 participants: September 15, for leaders navigating organizational change September 17, for professionals in transition September 22, for social impact leaders Details and registration: https://centerforgrowth.net/intro-sessions THE BOOK The Journey Beyond Fear, by John Hagel: https://www.amazon.com/Journey-Beyond-Fear... CONNECT John on LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/jhagel/ Website: https://centerforgrowth.net/ #HumanTechWeek #JohnHagel #Leadership #AITransformation #PassionOfTheExplorer CHAPTERS 0:00 Two levels of change 1:28 Every large organization, not only business 2:22 Never underestimate the immune system 3:01 The antibodies are well-intentioned people 3:19 Fear of the future: threat or opportunity 3:54 Why fear is a rational response 4:41 What fear costs: shorter horizons, less trust, isolation 5:32 The Passion of the Explorer 6:59 Why large organizations treat passion as suspect 7:25 Only 14% of US workers have it 8:30 Engagement and passion are measured differently 9:27 The new mark of a strong leader 10:33 Going deeper