The Unlearning Organisation LO9594

Brock Vodden (brock.vodden@odyssey.on.ca)
Thu, 29 Aug 1996 16:36:30 -0400 (EDT)

Replying to LO9527 --

At 07:52 PM 8/27/96 -0400, Jeff wrote:
>Michael McMaster (LO9449, 96-08-25) wrote, objecting to the term unlearning:
>
><<....That is, what is learned is not rejected or
> "unlearned" but is rechunked, accessed in new contexts, combined with
> previously unrelated areas, etc. The power of evolution is that the
> old is continually recombined to create the new.....
>
><<The challenge is to reduce the automaticity, the entrainment, the
> deep pathways. That is, to be able to think, rethink, transform, use
> newly, rechunk, recombine, etc. It is the grip of the past we want
> to loosen rather than "unlearn".

I don't understand, Jeff and Michael, why you are objecting to the word
'unlearn' in this context. It seems to me that "reducing automaticity, the
entrainment, the deep pathways" carries the same meaning exactly that the
term "unlearning" conveys in a much more succinctly. "Lossening the grip of
the past?" - sounds like unlearning to me.

I first used the term quite a few years ago to help an industrial engineer
investigate a problem with machine operator efficiency. He had spent a lot
of time and motion (sorry!) improving operator procedures and changing some
machine designs for greater efficiency. He had found that many of the
formerly most efficient operators were now among the slowest. His conclusion
was that these people were "stubborn and hostile" even though they showed no
verbal signs of these traits. I suggested that he consider whether they were
having difficulty unlearning the old routines which were only slightly
different than the new procedures. The next time I visited that plant, the
IE told me he had decided that unlearning was indeed the problem. He
observed, among other things, these people making many false moves, reaching
for a lever on the right that was now on the left, doing step A first and
then remembering that step B now comes first, starting to carry the finished
product to the old location, then remembering about the change and altering
direction.

We discussed the solution. I felt that the ideal solution would be to move
these individuals to an entirely different type of machine so that old
pattern would not be a factor. Not possible because of rigid company-union
agreements, and pay differentials based on machine type.

We were applying 'unlearning' to a very basic psychomotor activity. Is it
not possible that there could be a parallel in higher level skill areas? Do
we not have embedded automatic responses to situations which we decide are
inappropriate, and then have difficulty breaking the habit?

Just a thought.

Brock

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

H. Brock Vodden
Vodden Consulting
"Where People and Systems Meet"

Ontario, Canada
brock.vodden@odyssey.on.ca

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-- 

Brock Vodden <brock.vodden@odyssey.on.ca>

Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>