Why not Unlearn?Faster?

In 1970, Joni Mitchell sang, “Don’t it always seem to go, That you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone”, in her song “Big Yellow Taxi”.?

There are 572 known recordings of the song, which only reached 24 on the Billboard Charts when it was released as a single from her album “Ladies of the Canyon”.?

It was an environmental protest song before we knew the environment needed saving.

In his book “Future Shock” in 1970, Alvin Toffler declared, “The illiterate of the twenty-first century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”.?

He defines “Future Shock” as a psychological state of individuals and entire societies in reaction to “too much change in too short a period of time”

That was over 50 years ago, before the internet, microprocessors, and mobile phones, but after the first moon landing by Apollo 11.

Everything I have learned in my career I have had to unlearn to accommodate the accelerating pace of change and product obsolescence?—?in 1983, I brought home an old teletype with paper tape, which I have a picture of my young son (2) sitting at?—?obsolete because we moved on from using a DEC PDP8 to program printers.

Nothing goes to waste as his keyboard and entrepreneurial skills accelerated after that.?

Looking back at my career, my focus has always been globalising products and eliminating costs. I could save almost $300m because I focussed on engaging my teams to embrace change and unlearn what they knew.

Forbes details that 70% of change initiatives fail. The reason is that people get excluded. I requested permission to waste 10% of any savings made in errors”?—?I never spent more than 1%?—?but nobody complained as the bottom line benefitted.

The processes of inclusion I used were not called DEI in those days. I also found that other three-letter acronyms for quality, such as BPR, TQM and PLM, provoked a furious reaction from those charged with achieving shareholder return on investment.?

Perhaps because those quality aficionados had yet to learn that their TLAs should be a means to an end and not an end in themselves?—?they should have listened to the words of Big Yellow Taxi.

Change today is happening faster than ever. Resistance can be measured by the rise of right-wing politicians and fascist fundamentalist religions, which offer certainty in an uncertain world.?

Being an ostrich by delegating your future to a bunch of selfish and corrupt charlatans is not unlearning to relearn.

Be careful what you wish for, learn to unlearn and relearn faster, and don’t abdicate responsibility for your future; your children will never forgive you.