by Adriano Pianesi

Have you ever tried to drive on the left side of the road if you are born in a country in which one drives on the right? Or have you tried to use a measurement system different from the one you originally learned as a child? Or have you broken out in a sweat trying to learn a foreign language or the latest version of a software system you have been using for years? All these situations confront us with the tough challenge of replacing one behavior with a totally different one; one in which the rich combination of behaviors, knowledge, attitudes, and skills, reinforced over the years, acts as a barrier to our efforts.

The challenges of rapidly changing environments raise the concern: Can people's ability to acquire new knowledge in the workplace on an ongoing basis keep up with the continuous introduction of new change initiatives/new programs/new opportunities? Organizations' preoccupation with acquiring the latest information or knowledge rarely takes into account the processes required to reassess and release already acquired beliefs and previous learning. As result, the challenge that many organizations face when managing change programs and organizational transformation is to learn, unlearn, and relearn.

As a trainer, I have always dealt head-on with conflict, disagreement, resistance to new ideas, differences of opinion, common fears, anxieties, and feelings of incompetence in any class I have taught. A workshop with those elements is the rule not the exception and--more important--confronting the dimensions of unlearning and relearning results in more effective learning experiences that strengthen the possibilities of real organizational renewal and change. Unlearning should not be viewed as an end in itself, but as a means to ensure learning excellence, innovation, and ultimately change. I have come to believe that, to effectively train adults in the workplace, trainers must intentionally and deliberately attend to the process of unlearning and then relearning.

I have guided groups through learning and change in conditions of high uncertainty, little management support, and scarce budgets. Whether training on a new company policy, improving teamwork skills, or working on organizational transformation, I have faced unlearning decisively, with the idea that it must be confronted before the class, in the class, and after the class. In this article, I would like to share the strategies and suggestions that have proven helpful for me in supporting individual and team unlearning in the classroom.


This article originally appeared in The Systems Thinker, Vol. 20 N. 5 (June/July 2009).

Systems Thinking in Action:
Fueling New Cycles of Success
November 8-10, 2010
Boston Marriott Copley Hotel
Boston, Massachusetts


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by Robert Fritz

In a now famous story, a pottery teacher divided his class into two groups. He told one group that their grade would be determined by the quality of their work no matter how many pieces they made. The second group would be measured not on the quality of their work, but on the quantity. The more pieces, the higher the grade.

At the end of the semester, the results were clear. The group that had made the most pieces also had produced the highest quality work. Ironically, those students who were directly focused on quality were less able to produce quality. How come?