I’ve been in the creative and cultural sector long enough to remember a time before business plans (yes, there really was one!), we mainly worked on the basis of funding agreements. Over time the focus shifted, and we have spent some years perfecting the art of the business plan. Last year showed us that much of what we had learnt about business planning had to be put to one side, we suddenly had to find a new way to navigate the immediate future. In other words, we had to unlearn many of the approaches and rhythms that had become familiar. A bit like having to change from writing with your dominant hand to your non-dominant hand, this is not just a case applying learning differently, for many of us it was about having to let go of prior learning and learn something new. Like how to work when our galleries, theatres and museums are closed, and everyone is working from home.
Unlearning refers to discarding models, understanding or routines that are no longer relevant. This is based on understanding the inadequacies in current ways of doing things and exploring how to make them more relevant for the current context. I recently had a conversation with a student who was bemoaning the fact he couldn’t get into the college library, his way of doing research was to browse the shelves and he was really struggling to let go of that approach. His mental model was based on a physical process of walking around and searching in person. It is going to be challenging for him to find new ways to research until he lets go of having to be in a physical library.
One of the ways I have noticed valuable points of unlearning is the ‘if only’ moments. There has been more than one occasion when I have caught myself thinking ‘if only’ we could all be in the same room and I had all my physical workshop materials with me. I have had to unlearn how I facilitated physically and learn how to work from a distance. It is not just a case of forgetting, it is a more active unlearning of old approaches to make space for new ones.
Unlearning and learning are obviously closely intertwined. Ideally, when we intentionally discard old ways of doing things the process will lead to some form of improvement, but this is not necessarily guaranteed and needs to be monitored.
Knowledge grows and simultaneously it becomes obsolete as reality changes…unlearning – is as important a part of understanding as is adding new knowledge.
(Hedberg, 1981: 3)
Unlearning, individually and collectively, can be uncomfortable because it often takes us from unconscious competence to conscious incompetence. We may feel out of our depth and there is likely to be a strong urge to return to what is familiar. This is particularly an issue in older, more established organisations where the existing routines and habits may have been undertaken repeatedly for some time. The challenge we have been facing over the last year is that the changes required have been sudden and extreme, we haven’t had time for gradual change. In some case it has felt like everything had to change at once!
Steps towards unlearning:
- Identify the mental models and routines that are no longer relevant. In terms of routines this involves both the routine in principle and practice (they are not necessarily the same thing)
- Clarify the context in which the unlearning is happening. This can include your governance structures, the age of your organisation, the turnover of your team, and your wider operating environment
- Understand the barriers to unlearning in your team or organisation
- Identify the new models and routines that are more appropriate to the current (and future) context
- Build new models and routines and embed the new behaviours and attitudes
The key message I want to share from this is that it is not enough to focus purely on ‘learning,’ we also have to be conscious of, and adept at ‘unlearning.’
If anyone has examples of their own unlearning during this period do let me know, I’d really like to share some short case studies.
References:
HEDBERG, B. 1981. How organizations learn and unlearn. Handbook of organizational design (1), 3-27