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Changing Hearts & Minds: The Importance of Unlearning
We decided to make a change! Instead of our normal fare of summarizing and translating the latest journal articles on change we decided to focus on a topic – organizational unlearning – and attempt to connect the ideas of a number of different researchers*. Tell us what you think.
You might be thinking that we have chosen to focus on a potentially negative aspect of organizational change when so much emphasis in management literature and practice is placed on the importance of learning and gaining knowledge. However, organizational unlearning may be even more important to understand. Researchers increasingly recognize the need for a particular mindset if new ideas and practices are to be a possibility. They argue that before we can learn something new we have to engage in a process of unlearning. Why?
Taken for Granted Assumptions & the Problem of Success
People in organizations get caught in a trap of thinking in a particular way. William Starbuck* gives an example of the Swedish Navy. In the late 1980s and early 1990s the Swedes were convinced that the Soviets had submarines lurking off the Swedish coast. They engaged their considerable firepower in blasting any noise they heard. Unfortunately, they had become so fixed on this way of thinking that they were unable to recognize that the Soviets had long gone and the sounds they perceived as submarines were in fact minks and young seals.
However, this isn’t just a problem afflicting Scandinavians! Current beliefs and ways of doing things have a tendency to bias the types of information collected by all organizations and signals from the environment tend to be re-enforcing. Most organizational leaders know that getting stuck in a rut can be disastrous and the chances of survival are slim for those who don’t adapt, but they struggle to break away from patterns of behavior which have been successful in the past. The phrase “success breeds success†needs to be seriously challenged.
“There is considerable evidence that organizations learn from their successes, that this learning is beneficial initially, but that it becomes harmful over the long run. Learning becomes harmful because the lessons of experience gradually become inappropriate as technologies change and social trends progress, and organizations are unable to free themselves from obsolete lessons.â€**
So how can organizations avoid these pitfalls? One way is to consider the idea of unlearning – and the importance of developing the process of deciding not to follow accepted procedures.
Unlearning Solutions: Cultivate Tension
Researchers propose a number of solutions to open up the organization to dissonant signals – signals which challenge the existing way of thinking. Ideas include fostering:
- Dissatisfaction with results – a focus on the need to look for “a better wayâ€. For example, when Sony introduces a new product it simultaneously sets a “sunset†date when it will deliberately abandon the product. This triggers work on developing replacements.
- Experimentation with new ideas – allowing temporary deviation from normal working practice to test out different assumptions – for example the 3M team who developed the Post It note developed this against the prevailing logic “off the sides of their desksâ€.
- Learning from surprises or crises events which can offer significant opportunities to reflect on why things aren’t working.
- A belief in the validity of dissents and warnings – listeners need to guard against hasty rejections of bad news.
- Interviewing people leaving organizations to expose top managers to stories of dissent.
- Introducing new perspectives – what does a stranger think strange - for example, the development of the Sony Walkman was the result of outside intervention despite the engineers’ belief that it would never sell.
The last point is perhaps the most contentious. Many staff have been fired based on the rationale that fresh thinking requires fresh blood. The argument that managers become wedded to faulty strategies with a vested interest in sustaining the status quo needs to be weighed against the belief in an individual’s capacity to change. Jonathan Klein argues that replacing managers may send signals of change, but it is a short-term gain with no overall change in the capacity of the organization to learn. In fact employees may become driven by the fear of termination and become less adaptable, innovative and creative.
The Change Agent’s Challenge: Owning up to mistakes
For those managing change this process of unlearning may appear daunting – for good reason. According to Paul Nystrom and William Starbuck, organizational leaders need to have evidence that their beliefs are seriously deficient before they will think about major change. But that isn’t easy – in most organizations challenging “the system†is not encouraged and often is punished.
“It requires leadership from people who are capable of conceding they have made mistakes. It requires people who respect each other enough that they can both debate and cooperate. It requires a culture that can appraise ideas without judging their advocates.â€**
Ultimately, “sticking with the knitting†may be comfortable, acceptable and, in the short-term, rewarding but unless an organization is open to regularly questioning the assumptions underlying its operations the consequences may prove to be deadly.
*This post makes reference to the following articles.
Klein, J. I. 1989. Parenthetic learning in organizations: Toward the unlearning of the unlearning model. Journal of Management Studies, 26, 3, 291-309
McGill, M. E., & Slocum, J.W. 1993. Unlearning the Organization. Organizational Dynamics, 22, 2, 67-80
Nystrom, P. C., & Starbuck, W.H. 1984. To avoid organizational crises, unlearn. Organizational Dynamics
Pratt, M. G. 2000. The good, the bad, and the ambivalent: Managing identification among Amway Distributors. Administrative Science Quarterly, 45, 456-493
Starbuck, W. H. 1996. Unlearning Ineffective or Obsolete Technologies. International Journal of Technology Management, 11, 725-737.
Wicks, D. 2001. Institutionalized mindsets of invulnerability: Differentiated institutional fields and the antecedents of organizational crisis. Organization Studies, 22, 4, 659-692
** Quote from Barnett, M. L. (2007). (Un)Learning and (mis)education through the eyes of Bill Starbuck: An interview with Pandora’s playmate. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 6(1), 109-113.
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