Unlearning – why is it so hard?

Some years back when I was a management student at Symbiosis, CEO of Zensar Mr. Ganesh Natrajan had visited our campus for pre-placement talks. He was asked  by one of the students “ If you want great people to join your company then why you are here to hire freshers who actually do not know anything when you can easily get experienced ones floating in the industry?” To which Mr. Natrajan answered “Experience is the phase of life when you loose the charm of learning. 10 years back I hired best of FoxPro and Cobol language experts but today they are just not able to learn Oracle and hence I want a fresh mind who can learn any new concept/technology”. After this sentence of Mr. Natrajan everyone was satisfied or rather I would say attracted by the multi-digit package offered.

But no one was bothered to know – “What will happen to me when I reach at 10 yrs of experience level?”

I think this is not that important question, the main question is why people cannot learn new things when they get more experience. I know that one ready made answers to such questions are always applicable and available – “Its Human Nature”. I do agree but should not we need to do something about it, because if your expertise is restricting you to learn new things I wont consider it a Good.

The solution to this problem is – Unlearning. Yes, we need to learn the art of unlearning. This will raise one more question – how to unlearn something. The answer to this question may sound like another diplomatic one but the fact is – You cannot unlearn anything. I am neither trying to be funny here nor trying to confuse you.

If you have noticed I used the word ‘Art’ of unlearning not the ‘Science’ of unlearning. The maximum one can do is keep a control on whatever you learn, so that when needed you can just trigger the unlearn button. At this very point of time reading this blog if another question has already hit your brain, I assure you that you are going in right direction. How to control the learning part? By Asking question and trying to find out reason/logic for whatever you learn. Accept the logic but do not accept the tradition of acceptance.

If you have not understood completely, this means you have deeply learnt the process of learning through examples and now you cannot learn things without examples.

If you use – “Check please” instead of “Bill Please” at any restaurant without knowing the difference. You are experienced enough to unlearn. Most of us give tips to the waiter at restaurants (knowing that the service tax is already included) but do not pay tip to any other service provider like auto wala, any cinema multiplexes. Have you ever noticed to any Indian restaurants (even the branded ones) they put the plate for roti to the left side while we eat roti from right hand? Why a salesman wears a neck tie even in dead hot summer. It means we are just following the tradition without knowing why we are doing this. Everyone follows everyone, majority wins.

This is the reason why more than 90% of students run for MBA schools without knowing what expertise will help them in future. This is the reason why students blame their MBA schools for not getting placed but do not blame their high school when they get second division. This is the reason why people think only their food/culture/religion is good. This is the reason why companies find it difficult in hiring and firing people. This is reason why the ratio of innovative solution provider to existing solution provider is less. This is the reason why there is a commission model only for sales and marketing professional but not for developers. And this is the reason why companies fail to sell.

And this is the reason why people fail to unlearn and learn.

Confused???   Write to me shashi@ileadfarmers.com

Shashi Sudhanshu