How do we unlearn? LO9972

Frank Billot (fbillot@avignon.mm-soft.fr)
Sat, 14 Sep 1996 23:24:49 +0200

Replying to LO9863 --

Prasad,

>Only way to transcend your mental models is through your current
>mental models. Running away from it, rejecting it will only strengthen
>its hold on you. While it looks paradoxical, unlearning is something
>worth looking at to bring about breakthrough innovation and paradigm
>shifts in organizations.

Agreed. The dissonances that our mental models encounter when matching
information irrelevant to them are a source of knowledge on our set of
beliefs and functioning.

(As for the psychological aspect of that issue, I think this kind of
rejecting goes along with the perfection syndroma. By this I mean that if
we can't accept to be imperfect, we will discard wathever reminds us of
our imperfections. Progressing seems to have to operate on some basis, if
the basis is a perfect model unrelated to our reality we are like a
dreamer trying to run and never reaching his goal)

One assumption I discover here is our mental models are our main interface
to the world and that success or failure lies just in them. In order
words, it implies that we are the creator of our future by the variety
offered by our mental models (IMO , what about yours ?).

>What we already know gets in the way of what we want to learn. When we
>unlearn, we generate anew rather than reformulate the same old stuff.
>Creativity and innovation bubble up during the process of unlearning.
>This is not mere modification or restructuring of old material; once
>we remove our blinders, the world becomes quite different, with new
>possibilities and innovative approaches to situations that previously
>seemed stale or difficult.

What practical means can we offer to remove the bllinders ? What are the
hindrances to innovatice approaches ?

> If we wish to blossom, we should remember
>that a seed will only germinate if it ceases to be a seed.

Yes, changing implies dying to something else.
How can we foster letting go of the old stuff ?
How to gain confidence that we are a potential flower ?

Regards and appreciation
Frank Billot
fbillot@avignon.mm-soft.fr

L'exp=E9rience, ce n'est pas ce qui arrive =E0 l'individu.
C'est ce que l'individu fait de ce qui lui arrive.=20

Experience is not what happens to an individual.=20
It is what the individual makes of what happens to him.
Aldous Huxley

-- 

Frank Billot <fbillot@avignon.mm-soft.fr>

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