Sometimes Unlearning Is Far More Important Than Learning

If you are an adult who has ever been on skis, the odds are that on your first day, someone taught you to snowplow, which means placing your skis in a V-shaped wedge with the front tips together and the back tips apart.

On a beginner slope, this technique works reasonably well to control your speed and allow you to turn.

But in order to become an intermediate or expert skier, you must unlearn snowplowing and instead master parallel turns. For this reason, most instructors will try to move you past the snowplow technique as quickly as possible… sometimes even in a single day.

There are numerous circumstances when unlearning becomes critically important:

●??You want to get to a more advanced level

●??The old way of doing things has been proven inefficient or just plain wrong (think: the Earth is round, not flat)

●??The costs or difficulty of the current approach have become untenable (for example, hotels who no longer provide daily housekeeping, because they are short on staff)

●??Your values or beliefs have changed (for example, your parents taught you to be extremely conservative with financial decisions, but you would now like to take more risk, to accumulate greater wealth)

To cite a personal example from early in my career, I was at first very deferential to people who were above me in the organizational hierarchy.

Then I realized that being overly deferential meant they wouldn’t take me seriously, so I started treating them like any other human being. I had to unlearn an interaction style that was working against me.

Unfortunately, the more people, resources and time you've invested in doing things a certain way, the harder it is to unlearn that approach.?

And the more that you’ve been rewarded for doing things a certain way, the harder it is to abandon that way.?

Think, for example, about the forces currently at work in the legal industry, where law firms have long billed their clients by the hour. Many large companies are today pushing back against this tradition, but my perception is that most law firms are not yet ready to unlearn their old hourly-billing habits.

But I bet that many will soon have no choice.

To grow, you not only need the ability to learn. You also need to know how to unlearn.

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On the podcast this week:?

My guest Dorie Clark, author of "The Long Game" shares a story about a woman who became part of her Recognized Expert community and got back in touch a year later to thank Dorie. “I made one million dollars in my first year!” she reported.

But that’s not the best part, which is that the woman is 80 years old.

This is an example of what Dorie does so well: to inspire others to reach higher and to give them the skills and tools necessary to succeed.

I've known Dorie for 11 years, and have watched her play "the long game" with great success. Listen in to hear some actionable tips for charting your own unique path forward.

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Amanda Setili helps successful leaders and their teams agree on what needs to change and how to make it happen. She is author of?Fearless?Growth:?The New Rules to Stay Competitive, Foster Innovation, and Dominate Your Markets, and?The Agility Advantage, How to Identify and Act On Opportunities in a Fast-Changing World.?

For more strategies, videos and free materials, please visit?www.setili.com, and check out these quick examples of the type of work we do. Or listen to the Fearless Growth Podcast.

?Contact?Amanda?to discuss how she works with companies to improve profits, performance and growth.