Organizational Unlearning

This week, I ran into another research gem from 2007 titled “Linking unlearning and relational capital through organizational relearning” from the International Journal of Human Resource Development and Management and a related article from 2016 titled “Linking an unlearning context with firm performance through human capital” from European Research on Management and Business Economics

While I would encourage anyone to read both works in their entirety, here are the key insights that business leaders can use right now:

• Organizational learning:

  • Always starts from the bottom up based on the experience of individuals doing the work within the firm

  • Must be coordinated from the top down to avoid optimizing one capacity at the expense of others and reducing overall performance

  • Requires an intentional process to identify, harvest, and replicate individual insights in the rest of the organization

  • Is reliant on unlearning: that is the willingness to STOP doing things that do not add value (today), even if those activities worked in the past

• Firms with the ability to unlearn can turn crisis and upheaval into creative destruction that sets the table for future success:

  • As Cigarra-Navarro and Sanchez-Polo point out: “a cycle of [creative destruction] is the best weapon a company can have in crisis situations, where the [organizational memory] is inappropriate in relation to the [current business environment].”

Unlearning is a 3-step process of (1) becoming aware of outdated assumptions, rules, routines or processes that do not produce optimal results; (2) allowing the modification of responsibilities, work flows, product, and service offerings to stop remaking mistakes; (3) spreading insight and adoption of these modifications and insights throughout the firm. 

The worldwide pandemic has left almost no one unscathed and placed a tremendous cognitive load on workers, managers, and business owners as they have transformed their business models and operating norms overnight.  From the mass adoption of remote work to drastic shifts in both supply and demand, Covid-19 has shed new light on business models throughout the globe.  It has also created what may be the most valuable business opportunity in a generation.

The post-Corona economy offers a tremendous opportunity for firms to perceive their organization in a new way.  Viktor Shklovsky once said that the value of art derives from its ability to “[make] the familiar strange so that it can be freshly perceived.” In the same way, the virus has given leaders a once-in-a-generation opportunity to perceive their business in profoundly new ways. To identify old knowledge, outdated assumptions, rules of thumb, and cultural norms that must be unlearned. 

For business owners, leaders, and executives, this is THE job to be done in 2020: surviving upheaval while setting the table for success in the new economy.  It’s a big job and outside perspective can help.

Let’s get to work.