My sister is left-handed. When she began school, a couple of her teachers tried to force her to change and use her right hand instead. My parents intervened and asked the teacher to back-off.
Now imagine a different scenario:
The teacher forced my sister to change her hand. No one intervened and she struggled and began writing with her right hand.
A few years later, a new teacher, a much more sensible one, came along and saw her struggling. She realised my sister’s discomfort and told her to start writing with her left hand again. How easy would it have been for my sister to again go back to writing with her left hand?
Apart from being confusing, she would have had to unlearn a wrong habit and spend some time getting used to writing with her left hand again.
Whenever I see a junior being taught something wrong by their senior, my biggest fear is all the unlearning they have to do when they work under a sensible person.
If someone is used to intimidation and bullying to get their work done, they will have a lot of unlearning to do if they go to a place where that behaviour isn’t tolerated.
If someone is used to taking shortcuts, they will have a lot of unlearning to do when they join a place that puts a premium on rigor.
In today’s world, the challenge is to unlearn.
Presentations
Business strategies
Leadership
Marketing
All of these are changing rapidly and rules that applied 10 years back no longer make sense.
Unlearning means discarding what you have already learned. And this is the tough part. Even if what you have learned isn’t serving you any more, the fact that a certain amount of time and energy has already been invested into it makes it hard to let go and discover a new path.
Trying to accommodate the new with the old is like constantly refreshing your wardrobe without throwing away any of your old clothes. It just won’t fit.
A good question to ask at the end of the day is — what have you unlearned today?
