The Power of Unlearning

We are deep into Q2. I hope you’ve carried out an extensive personal and professional review. How did your Q1 go? What were your lessons, gains, gaps and what are your current learning needs? More importantly, what is your learning agility?

When you initially hear the phrase ‘learning agility’, as an executive leader it’s easy to circle back to your adaptability metre: how quickly or how well you adjust and thrive in new or challenging situations by actively seeking and applying new knowledge and skills.

In this month’s letter, I want you to consider your learning agility from the lens of unlearning.

These days everyone is trying to learn.

As a Global Transformational Leadership Educator keen on encouraging leaders to enrol into our in-person programs, as well as our online self-leadership programs delivered via Rise School, it may come as a surprise that I'm asking you to unlearn.

You see, every day I interact with male and female executives at the height of their corporate career. I have observed that in their pursuit of learning, they forget that there are habits, attitudes and knowledge biases they pick along the way, which over time, reach an expiry date. Biases that become an invisible barrier to their sustainable career progression.

I'm talking about the ‘conscious and unconscious’ biases.

Think of the multi-generational workplaces you find yourself in. You now have GenZs as your colleagues (and soon GenAlphas will join the fray) testing the boundaries of your biases, witnessed when for example, as the team lead on a project, you want them to deliver work a certain way, ‘in the corporate way’, ‘the brand aligned way’, but they decide to add their own flair to ‘the doing’ of the same work.

How do you reconcile your way and ‘their way’?

Then we have the market and client dimensions that also cut across generations. Where you must embrace a difference in opinions and insights, but hit a snag because of the identity you have developed (understandably) of being an expert. Because your way, the expert way, has always worked, so you resist doing it another way.

Leaders, allow me to remind you that to keep thriving, you must unlearn and offload this expert identity.

The more enduring and sustainable role for any executive leader in 2024 and beyond, remains to understand your market, customers, stakeholders and team members, clear out any workplace barriers and initiate courageous conversations that don’t ostracise based on generational gaps, but instead, bring out the genius in every team member. And the answer again, lies in unlearning.

Not too long ago, I reshared a post on Linkedin on GenZs in the workplace and it racked up considerable debate. It serves as a good starting point for unlearning. You can read it here.

As I Conclude this May, I Want To Leave You With My Biggest 3 …

• My biggest lesson from Q1: As you navigate life and work, when things don't go according to plan it’s easy to lose your peace and focus. Being able to move from emotional intelligence to emotional agility interchangeably, is key. You need to unlearn your old habits and reactions and exercise the mental muscle that sees opportunities where challenges lay.
• My biggest goal for the month: To prepare well, so as to serve well. My team and I are preparing for the 7th, Your Next Best Self Conference 2024 in Kampala Uganda on 19th October. We not only seek to serve the Ugandan and East African market at large by demonstrating that Africans are closest to our problems and hence closest to our solutions, but we also seek to work , lead and serve sustainably with a heart-set and mindset that is elevated.
• My biggest prayer for our clients: Over the years working closely with leaders, more often than not, you come to us when you are at a crossroad or in a quagmire needing clarity. My hope and prayer this month is that you find yourself (self awareness) and then master yourself (self leadership) so that your gifts, talents, experiences, messes, pains, joys and failures become your service to humanity for a higher purpose. As I wrote in my first book RISE: 'May your pain lead you to something beautiful. May you see yourself the way I see you, with more light than shadows.'

BEFORE YOU GO....

Did you know that at Rise School with Dr Patricia Murugami we have a range of self-paced online leadership programs designed for the rising leader in you, for both men and women? We developed each program to help catalyze your leadership journey at whatever level you are in your life and career.

Notable dates:

• 31 May 2024- Rise Masterclass Cohort 4 graduation
• 31 May 2024- Early Bird deadline for the Your Next Best Self Summit 7.0
• 2nd August 2024 - Rise Masterclass, cohort 5, Registration Deadline, Orientation class is on 14th August 2024
• 19th October 2024 - Your Next Best Self Summit, 7.0 in Serena Kampala Uganda