Let’s talk about something really surprising for a learning professional.
My entire career has been about helping people learn how to do their work better. Twenty-five years designing leadership programs, building competency models, creating learning ecosystems. I got pretty good at it—industry award-winning good.
But recently I encountered a concept that exposed a significant gap in my methods. What could that be?
Unlearning.
Here’s the problem: We spend enormous energy teaching people new frameworks, new tools, new approaches. But we almost never help them let go of what’s no longer serving them.
That outdated mental model about how decisions get made? Still running in the background. That ineffective habit developed in a previous role? Still shaping behavior. Those assumptions about “how things work here” from five years ago? Still creating invisible barriers.
We layer new learning on top of old patterns and wonder why transformation is so hard.
Real transformational learning requires unlearning as a deliberate discipline—not as an afterthought, but as foundational work. Before we can truly adopt new ways of working, we need structured approaches to identifying and releasing what we’re holding onto that no longer serves us.
The organizations that master this don’t just train better. They adapt faster, innovate more readily, and—here’s what matters to me—they suffer less in the process.
What would change in your organization if unlearning became as intentional as learning?