Unlearning

The power of learning to unlearn, a recent article by Rachel Botsman, caused me to think about some of the material in the Mindshifting classes.

One of the observations in Mindshifting 1 is that we can’t remove a habit (or belief, or value, or methodology, or skill) we replace it.

There is a tried and true 4 step model towards building fluency:

1. Unconscious incompetence: when we don’t even realize that something is wrong.
2. Conscious incompetence: this actually has three components.
   1. Realization that there is a gap between what we are doing (or thinking, or saying) and the results we desire.
   2. Observation that there are other actions which do lead to the results we desire.
   3. Selection of some action, but, because we are not skilled in it, the desire to learn those skills.
3. Conscious competence: improvement in the skills, probably through a combination of research, instruction, practice, and feedback with the understanding that we can perform them but only if we consciously and actively perform them.
4. Unconscious competence: fluidity in using the skills, so that we do not have to think about them and that they become our new habits.

Botsman emphasized that our own minds will often fight like the dickens to defend what is already known and familiar. This is one of the reasons that organizations and people who yearn for a growth mindset or learning culture find it much harder that expected; getting to that third part of Conscious incompetence is really really hard, and progressing to unconscious competence is equally fraught.

Our minds have a lot of weapons to resist change, to fight unlearning, using fear and anxiety to unleash cognitive biases and collective illusions. The deceptively simple answer is to act with a sense of curiosity and exploration, especially when success seems inaccessible.

During the unconscious incompetence phase, it’s being curious about whether there might be other or better ways. When we start realizing our incompetence it means searching for alternatives, synthesizing what we are learning, and consciously choosing a path even when our own minds and others question our sanity for designing change. While we are experimenting, and often failing, to acquire competence, it means looking at how far we have traveled, what we are learning, and what we might practice.

Our minds and our colleagues might call on us to give up. Progress is through curiosity and exploration, to exemplify what Arianna Huffington said, “Failure is not the opposite of success, it’s part of success.”