“No matter who you are, most of the smartest people work for someone else.” This quotation is widely attributed to Bill Joy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems. Whenever you begin thinking that unlearning may no longer be necessary just remember this quotation. If nothing else, it should help keep you humble and open to the idea…

What is the abbreviation for “pounds”? Did you say “lbs”? Congratulations, you are correct. Now, where does the abbreviation come from? It’s rather curious. None of the letters (l-b-s) appear in the word “pound.” What should be more curious is why you have never inquired into the matter (provided that is you don’t know the…

“To kill an error is as good a service, and sometimes even better than, the establishing of a new truth or fact.” – Charles Darwin Question #9: Who coined the phrase, “The survival of the fittest”? Did you say Charles Darwin? If so, you are mistaken. The honor belongs to Herbert Spencer who first used…

This past summer IBM released a survey of 1500 CEO’s across the globe and they said that creativity was the most important leadership quality for guaranteeing future success. How does one become creative, though? Part of the answer begins with the ability to unlearn. It’s now generally understood that today’s more successful companies have figured out…

If you want to facilitate creativity and encourage innovation you are going to have to embrace the idea that many ideas and products will end in failure. Failure, as I have said before, is thus something that must be encouraged. But how does one “encourage” failure? One idea, which was suggested in this article, is…

Everybody likes to be “in the know.” The problem with this is that it’s an impossible goal to achieve because knowledge is being created at an ever accelerating rate. This knowledge creation is a wonderful thing but it also implies that our ignorance is growing even faster (in the sense that it is impossible to…

Chief Unlearning Officer Jack Uldrich explains how to unlearn–and change your life–without any words.

“Chief Unlearning Officer” Jack Uldrich discusses why teachers may need to unlearning what they think they know about teaching and learning.

A while back I wrote this short post entitled The Secret to Unlearning in Seven Words. The seven words are "Give up on answers. Stay with questions." I just finished reading a wonderful article from Clayton Christensen, How Will You Measure Your Life? In it, he writes this:  "When people ask what I think they…