Unlearning – a significant ingredient to successful transformation by Nivarti Jayaram

There are a lot of frameworks available to impart learning. It is also easier to learn new competencies & behaviors than to unlearn. This is because unlearning is an internal process of oneself. How can we unlearn?

This is the big question that most of us have.

As part of organizational / team transformation, we always have coaches emphasizing the need to learn new practices and ways of working. Until the time we have the practices and new ways working well with guidance & support available from coaches to course correct, the transformation is expected and seen to be on track.

However, once the support system moves out and the teams/organizations are on their own, at slightest of trouble or issues, the teams and/or organizations start falling back to their old habits/ behaviours as well as ways of working. This is mainly because of the fact that the teams always focussed on learning new skills and not on unlearning the old competencies and behaviors.

What we need to be clear is about what is that we are looking to unlearn?

Skills or competencies or behaviors!!! All of these or some of these. Let’s first establish clarity around how these are related.

Skill is an ability and capacity acquired through deliberate, systematic, and sustained effort to smoothly and adaptively carryout complex activities or job functions involving ideas (cognitive skills), things (technical skills), and/or people (interpersonal skills). – Wikipedia

Competency is the ability to do something successfully or efficiently Learning & unlearning processes run in parallel. The Learning process is moving from Unconscious Incompetence to Unconscious Competence while Unlearning happens the other way round.

With the rapid changing Technology, leadership styles and next generation thought process, it is imperative that we all learn the way to unlearn. This is needed to not just progress in the organizational context but also in your professional career and life but even to stay relevant.

The talk looks to address the need to unlearn and well as bringing to light certain ways and means that could be used to unlearn the specific competencies and behaviors identified.

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