The concept of unlearning might seem pointless to some people. So, too, might the idea of doing something that makes you uncomfortable. The surprising thing is this: If you do something out of your comfort zone, it widens your circle of comfort. It this same way, unlearning enhances your awareness of how much you don’t…

Socrates once said that no theory of error can exist entirely outside a theory of truth. In this spirit, I'd like to suggest that no theory on learning can exist without a theory on unlearning. My theory on unlearning begins with this question: What don't I know?

“How can we remember our ignorance, which our growth requires when we are using our knowledge all the time.” Henry David Thoreau The author and poet Henry David Thoreau identified the crux of unlearning in the above quotation. Our growth requires we acknowledge our ignorance but this is difficult to do when we are using…

As a leader you must nurture an organization that can rapidly adapt. Unlearning can help. Unlearning can also help you innovate. In fact, unlearning can even assure you and your organization survive. After years of work, I am pleased to report that I have now developed both a half and a full-day seminar designed to help organizations…

"If old learning impedes new learning, unlearning must take place." — Jack Uldrich The late Peter Drucker, widely regarded as the father of modern management, once wrote: "We now accept the fact that learning is a lifelong process of keeping abreast of change. And the most pressing task is to teach people how to learn."…

Take a look at the image to the right. It is a visual display of Everett Roger's famous model of diffusion. I, however, want you to look at it differently. Consider it, instead, "an unlearning curve." Conventional wisdom tells us that it is safe in the middle. Advertising and marketers frequently target their message toward…

 “The curious thing is that with these exponential changes, so much of what we currently know is just getting to be wrong. So many of our assumptions are getting to be wrong. As so, as we move forward, not only is it going to be a question of learning it is also going to be…

 “The chief object of education is not to learn things but to unlearn things.” The above quote is from G.K. Chesterton, a British author and thinker, about whom I know very little. In my never-ending quest to unlearn, however, I keep stumbling upon his writings. After reading the following story, I am now even more determined to…

Ralph Waldo Emerson was reported to have greeted his friends with the question, "What has become clear to you since we last met." I've have always loved this greeting because I believe Emerson was trying to accomplish two different things with a single question. First, he was trying to challenge his friends to "think about…