Unlearning 101

Don't Play Russian Roulette With Your Future: Unlearn!

The first chapter of my new book, Higher Unlearning: 39 Post-Requisite Lessons for Achieving a Successful Future, is entitled “Unlearn or Die.” To better appreciate why unlearning will be such a critical skill in the future, I’d like to share this paragraph from Josh Linkner’s outstanding article, Vu Deja: Tricking Yourself Into Looking At Problems With a Fresh Perspective:

The way you solved a customer issue or launched a product in the past may have worked great, but the world isn’t standing still. Quite the opposite–every night when we go to bed and wake up the next day, things have changed. Those who get stuck in the past and lean on the golden ways of a time gone by are playing Russian roulette with their future.

In other words, unlearn or die!

If you’d like some concrete examples of how to look at a problem from a fresh perspective, my new book (also available as an e-book) has plenty of examples along the lines of this old post: 5 Ways to Make the Familiar Strange.

 

Master Unlearning

The following paragraph is from a review of Cathy Davidson's new book, Now You See It:

Ms. Davidson notes that our schoolmaster-led classrooms and grading customs look pretty much as they did not just in the last century but in the 19th century. She contrasts this with Duncan Germain's classroom at Voyager Academy, a charter school in North Carolina, where learning is made to resemble a collaborative game. Self-organized teams engage in a contest to build the best bridge out of Popsicle sticks. Along the way they learn for themselves not just principles of engineering but also strategies of management—just what they need to thrive in the new world of work. Students in such a setting, Ms. Davidson writes, "are mastering the lessons of learning, relearning, and unlearning that are perfectly suited to a world where change is the only constant."

If Ms. Davidson's name sounds familiar it is because I wrote about her in this post in 2009: Cathy Davidson on Unlearning.

My question to you, though, is this: Are you mastering the lessons of unlearning?

If not, you might want to start with my new book, Higher Unlearning: 39 Post-Requisite Lessons for Achieving a Successful Future.

 

 

Can You Just Say "I Don't Know"?

"Stocks eked out a slight gain as investors weighed earnings from some high-profile retailers against signs of rising input costs and continued dissatisfaction over efforts to find a solution to Europe's debt woes.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average inched up 4.28 points, or 0.04%, at 11410.21, after gaining 124 points early in the session." 

So began this article ("Earners Help Dow Inch Higher") in today's newspaper describing yesterday's action on Wall Street.

Following on the heels of last week, in which the stock market crashed down more than 500 points in a single day only to soar back 400 the next--for seemingly no reason, does it really make sense to think that anyone has a logical explanation for why the stock market fluctuated a mere .04%? To put this in perspective last week's wild gyrations were 100 times larger!

As human beings we love to explain things and we love to think that everything has a rational cause-and-effect but, as numerous writers have eloquently explained in books such as Fooled by Randomness; The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and Markets and A Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives--randomness plays a far larger role in our lives than most of us care to admit.

One good way to begin acknowledging this randomness (and unlearning your need to explain away everything) is to simply respond to many questions by saying, "I don't know."

Put another way, a more honest lead into today's Wall Street Journal article (perhaps entitled "Dow Inches Higher for Unknowable Reasons") might have read, "The Dow Jones Industrial Average inched up 4.28 points, or 0.04%, at 11410.21, after gaining 124 points early in the session, as a result of millions of individuals, corporations and institutions making decisions for a variety of unknown reasons." 

 Not a fun or particularly enlightening read, but probably a little closer to the truth.

 

Don't Assume You More Than You Do

"... he has persuaded me that we can solve many of our problems as long as we don't assume that we know more than we do."

So concludes John Horgan in his insightful review of David Deutsch's new book, The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Will Transform the World.

I not only agree with the thinking behind quote, more importantly, I like that Mr. Horgan is willing to admit the author's book (and ideas) had changed his mind. (Apparently, Deutsch even criticized some of Horgan's own ideas in the book.)

As I've said before, I wish more people would expose themselves to unlearning and admit when they have been persuaded to see the world differently. Ironically, it would make the world a better place. 

Related Posts

Ignorance Isn't Bliss But It May Hold the Key to Wisdom

A Notebook of Things I Don't Know

Expose Yourself to Unlearning

The Power of Being Wrong

Later today, I'm addressing 200 senior executives of the Allina Hospital System in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The topic of my keynote presentation is "Why Future Trends in Healthcare Will Require Unlearning."

I'll cover a great many areas but I intend to begin my talk with a discussion about humility. There is, perhaps, no better place to begin "unlearning" than by simply acknowledging the possibility you might be wrong--a point eloquently captured by Kathryn Schultz, author of the new book, Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error: 

“If you really want to be right (or at least improve the odds of being right) you have to start by acknowledging your fallibility, deliberately seeking out your mistakes, and figuring out what caused you to make them.”

In other words, by embracing the idea you can, have and will be wrong, you're more likely to get it right.

Related Healthcare Posts:

Doctor Heal Thyself By Unlearning

A Marshall Plan for Unlearning

In 2005, I wrote a book entitled Soldier, Statesman, Peacemaker: The Leadership Lessons of General George C. Marshall. As a result, I have the opportunity to occasionally travel to Lexington, Virginia to speak at the Marshall Foundation.

Recently, after one of my talks, I had the pleasure of listening to Terry Newell deliver a lecture on "Strategic Leadership: George C. Marshall and the Marshall Plan." In it, he dissected Marshall's original speech on "The Marshall Plan". (By the way, Marshall himself never called it the Marshall Plan -- he was far too modest -- and instead always referred to it as The European Recovery Act.)

What had never occurred to me -- and what Newell brought to my attention -- is that the "Marshall Plan" ends with a series of questions:

"And yet the whole world of the future hangs on a proper judgment. It hangs, I think, to a large extent on the realization of the American people, of just what are the various dominant factors. What are the reactions of the people? What are the justifications of those reactions? What are the sufferings? What is needed? What can best be done? What must be done? Thank you very much."

Newell then asked the audience the significance of this gesture. No one responded, so he offered that it was Marshall's way of inviting his audience to not only think of the enormous problems facing Europe at that time but as a way of inviting dialogue as well.

As readers know, I'm a huge proponent of asking questions as a method of unlearning and what Marshall so eloquently reminds us is that one of the biggest benefits of asking questions is that they can till, cultivate and nurture the ground from which new thinking -- and solutions -- can emerge.

To this end, it is worth noting that when Marshall delivered his historic speech there was no such thing as "The Marshall Plan." The plan, which has been hailed by many historians as the greatest act of diplomacy of the 20th century, was only formulated afterwards with assistance of American and European diplomats, legislators, and citizens.

Related Posts

Exponential Executive Extraordinare: General George C. Marshall

Step Up to The Counter of Unlearning

I enjoyed Malcolm Gladwell's book, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, which discusses the value of heeding your intuition. It's a powerful idea.

Unfortunately, it is incomplete. Often our intuition is wrong.

The problem with Gladwell's book is that it never provides a counter narrative. That is he never tells those stories of people who trusted their intuition -- and then got burned.

To stay open to the possibility that you might need to unlearn, it's wise to make it a habit to always search for counter-evidence.

Phrased another way, always ask this question: What could prove the idea (or me) wrong?

Looking for other questions you might ask yourself? Check out this old post:

What Questions Aren't You Asking?

A Turn-a-Round Question

Being Wrong Feels Like Being Right

Below is a wonderful talk by Kathryn Schulz, self described "wrongologist" and the author of Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error. I especially liked this statement of hers:"One of the problems with being wrong ... is that it feels like being right."

This is so true and it is one of the reasons I strive to replace statements of "no doubt" with the more philosophical statement: "to know doubt."

After listening to her presentation, however, I'm even more convinced we need to teach unlearning in kindergarten and that each of us must strive to possess a little more intellectual humility."

Related Post

Someone Else Being Wrong Doesn't Make You Right

 

Non-Pleasure for Pleasure's Sake

I am currently reading William Irvine's book, A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy and stumbled across this paradoxical -- or, at least, counter-intuitive -- idea: Denying yourself pleasure can lead to pleasure.

How?

Consider eating an ice cream cone or, perhaps, a pleasant dessert. Undoubtedly, such an experience would be pleasurable. What people often forget is that the opposite may also be true. In the case of not eating ice cream or dessert it is possible that you may also experience pleasure by being pleased with yourself for showing self-constraint.

Orville Wright Did Not Have a Pilot's License

I'm currently reading Gordon MacKenzie's delightful book, Orbiting the Giant Hairball. Chapter 19 is the shortest, most insightful chapter I have read in some time. I will repeat it in its entirety for your reading pleasure:

Orville Wright did not have a pilot's license.