Learn, Unlearn and Relearn

Let me start off with an incidence - In Singapore, I wanted to cross the road – I just looked across and observed that there were no vehicles coming in my way and I crossed it. Later, I was told that there would be a fine if anyone crossed the road when the signal is red (STOP), irrespective of whether the vehicles were plying or not. The next day I went again to the road, my legs started to cross again, just when I realized that we are not supposed to pass until the signal is green (GO). I had learnt a particular way to cross the road in India, now I had to unlearn and relearn a new way of doing the same thing.

This is a typical example of being able to learn, unlearn and relearn. Recently I was reading a book – “Why men can’t listen and women can’t read maps?” in which a small part debated on Nature v/s Nurture. It reflected the clash of the qualities that was developed by nature and those which were developed by nurture. It was indicating that the power of nature was stronger than that of nurture, based on some of the findings in genetics. It indirectly suggested that most of the information regarding the individual would be encrypted in set of proteins called DNA, and chances of altering this would be very rare.

Does that mean if we have learnt anything by nature/by genes, we cannot unlearn and relearn it? No, because we need to know that unlearning doesn’t mean to lose out everything that you have accumulated through your experience, but it is the quality of being open to outside ideas that can be analyzed and pursued. As long as you pursue this virtue of openness and thinking out of the box, the unlearning should not be a tough task. This is one of those qualities that make capable and dynamic leaders. Every person who is aiming to scale the heights of Level 5 executives should inculcate this character. They need to nurture this quality, gifted by nature and develop them to make themselves better.

This is important even in the context of a company. As globalization had changed itself to glocalization, adaptability became the attribute of expansion of companies to other developing countries.  As Jeffrey R. Immelt, CEO of GE puts it – “With glocalization, companies develop great products at home and then distribute them worldwide, with some adaptations to local conditions.”

But now, the companies need to advance from glocalization to the next level – create products truly suiting the needs of the economy/demands of a particular country. This requires more than adaptation. They is a need to unlearn the way the things were done in the home country and relearn to do the same things in a different way, keeping the local customs and demands in mind.  Hence this mantra holds water in this era of rapid expansion and information exchange. This transformation at a macro level is neither simple nor an easy process. It is always easy to learn a new stuff than unlearning something and later relearning the same thing, in a different manner. Sometimes it could be a painful one. However this is a continuous process for any company or individual to progress.

When this process of unlearning does becomes very important? – When you know what you were doing previously was tested and gave very good results, but is not working to the current day requirements. It is at this stage that you need to unlearn the old ways and become open to new, rather innovative ways.  We need to be open enough to accept this process as a continuous one and not a one-time change.

We need to believe that we can unlearn the non-working stuff and relearn the new methodologies of doing things or getting things done. So let’s all make a list of the things which we feel is not working in the present day and make an effort to unlearn them for the benefit of all.