How to Compete in the Age of Moonshot Leadership and Exponential Organizations [& #6]

A Basic Principle in Relation to the Future: The Never-Ending Learning / Unlearning Loop  

In my book "Journey of the Future Enterprise" we try to understand what is happening around us and the future where we’re heading to. Not everything is technology or strategy; the essence of business, of organizations, is people. We’re the ones who are able to creatively use both strategy and technology to create prosperity. Sometimes, however, we are the main barrier to change, as we tend to rely on technology and strategy to continue moving along the same path even when the path no longer exists! In this case, we need to find a new path and cling to accumulated experiences and knowledge as if they were a lifejacket. 

As the most disruptive companies begin to use technological advancements to transform business models and deliver products to customers in new ways, business leaders, regardless of industry, face pressure to be agents of change and drivers of innovation to meet the expectations of their stakeholders. However, one problem persists: While technology continues to develop, the ability of people and organizations to fully adopt new technologies have not kept pace. For example, security is a top concern for many, which, due to its inherent complexity, creates barriers to the adoption of cloud, big data, and remote working, which could inhibit overall innovation. 

In addition to innovations in products and services that may unleash new revenue streams, businesses need to also think about innovation in the workplace to improve workforce productivity and reduce costs. This new culture of innovation shouldn’t stop at incremental changes in products or services; instead, it should extend to the creation of new and improved organizational processes and behaviors. One such example is work environment redesign: by adopting secure cloud and mobile technologies, employees can access information from anywhere and on any device, so they get more work done more efficiently without jeopardizing data security. 

Continuous learning is the need of the hour. We need to be on our toes 24/7 when it comes to learning, lest we miss something new. Learning is an ongoing process. Vast amounts of reading material are available on the Internet along with numerous academic institutions and training institutes that can also help us gain the required skills. Some traits might be inherent and easier to grasp, while others are a bit harder. But learning is generally the easy part. What is usually more difficult is to “unlearn” previous knowledge in order to start afresh and to “relearn” things. 

Unlearning and acquiring new learning are critical skills that can help you stand out in your career. While this may seem strange, the reality is that we have been learning, unlearning, and relearning our whole lives. Numerous established artists painted their most famous works over the top of others: Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Magritte, El Greco, Picasso ... Beneath Leonardo da Vinci’s famous Mona Lisa, there are two other hidden portraits. We build upon the foundation of what we’ve learned to continue growing, but at the same time, we flush away some of that knowledge because it’s outdated or doesn’t serve us in the same way it has in the past. The business also follows the learning-unlearning loop pattern. 

The root and importance of unlearning 

There is a fundamental difference between unlearning and forgetting. The former is an active task while the latter is passive. Everyone forgets things; it’s just human nature. However, the ability to unlearn is critical to your success in business and in life. Unlearning is related to understanding and therefore connected to the concept of “agile learning” – the ability to rapidly study, analyze, and understand new situations. The most obvious example of unlearning is the Internet: As new apps become available to consumers and business markets, we need to adapt and learn new capabilities while unlearning older functionality. In these busy times with so much to learn, we also need to pause and consider unlearning. However, this doesn’t mean that you should unlearn everything.

The simplest definition of unlearning is to do away with the old to give way to the new. We shouldn’t forget what we know but step back from it to be able to see things differently. While learning is important for building ourselves professionally and personally, it’s the ability to unlearn that helps us to adapt. Unlearning isn’t an overnight process; letting go of what we know and giving way to new ideas demands perseverance.

Knowledge is an extra resource in today’s world. This has put a lot of pressure on businesses to keep up with the latest trends and innovations. Constantly learning new methods and processes has become essential in order to remain competitive. It’s one thing to introduce a completely new idea into your business, but what happens if an innovation contradicts an already existing system that has worked well for your company up until now?

This is when unlearning becomes essential. Unlearning is the act of letting go of old information or habits in order to make room for new ideas which might be better. This is, of course, easier said than done. According to LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, “success imprints more strongly than failure”. When we succeed, we tend to believe that the tools we used must have been the right ones and that keeping them sharp and in good condition is enough. We’re programmed to trust the way we do things if they work and have a natural distrust of new procedures if they contest our previously held beliefs. 

The anchoring effect on organizations

In the daily business of most organizations, core competencies are seen as a competitive advantage. They have clearly served the organization well in the past, enabling it to reach the point it’s at today, and are trusted to steer the organization into the future. As core competencies are also beneficial to customers, organizations usually strive to protect and maintain them because they provide the best chance for continued differentiation and growth. Nonetheless, thinking about core competencies in this manner can have an anchoring effect on an organization’s long and short-term agility, flexibility, and capacity to innovate.

Core competencies often start to represent the boundaries of your mental territory and the limitations of your organizational culture. As humans, we have a natural tendency toward mental fixedness, and this has benefits. Knowing what each object around us is and what they do speeds things up and makes life easier – we don’t have to think about them every time we come across them. However, this useful tendency can encourage restrictive behaviors when it comes to core competencies. To overcome the anchoring effect of your core competencies, you need to continuously switch between learning and unlearning and you need to proactively and systematically question your orthodox thinking, your common business and organizational logics, and your established assumptions. 

When we unlearn, we step outside our current mental model to choose a broader outlook to address the situations at hand more efficiently. Unlearning can be compared to erasing a pencil sketch from the canvas to create a new, more colorful design. This approach becomes all the more important in the current business scenario where new challenges require an innovative problem-solving attitude to identify solutions and break new ground. These days, sticking with the “this is how it’s always been done” approach can pose serious challenges to the growth and career progression of both an employee and a firm. 

However, excessive technology innovation is another issue. There are numerous entrepreneurs who are firmly convinced of the type of innovation they are using and, as a result, do not offer their employees many other options, even though this sometimes complicates matters. Luckily, there are generally many innovative options available that can be tailored to your needs and those of your organization. Companies should focus on having a stable and effective set of innovation options, having in mind that technology shouldn’t drive strategy, and strategy shouldn’t leave people behind. Sustainable business success resides in the triangulation of technology, strategy, and people.

Article excerpted from the book Journey of Future Enterprise

[Click here to buy the English Version] – [Clickar aquí para comprar la Versión en Español]

Index of the Book

Part I: The Disruptive Change in Deep

1. An Insight into the Fourth Industrial Revolution 

2. The Paradigm Change

3. What Makes the Fourth Industrial Revolution Different? 

4. Cyber-Physical Systems: The Fusion of the Physical, Digital, and Biological Worlds 

Part II: Leadership and Organizations Leading the Change 

5. Moonshot Leadership for Massive Transformation

6. Exponential Organizations that Change the Game 

Part III: How Transform Organizations to compete in the Future

7. Strategy in the World of Exponential Change 

8. Three Basic Principles in Relation to the Future

9. Conclusion: Speed is the New Currency

Epilogue: Augmented Business Accelerated by the COVID-19 Pandemic 

© 2020 Jorge Calvo García | © 2020 Libros de Cabecera S.L.