The Unlearning Organisation

Professor Adrian Furnham :

Do you recall the learning organisation? It was the magic bullet of its time. Nearly 30 years ago a planning director of a large corporation argued in the Harvard Business Review that organisations, like people, had the capacity for learning and evolution.

Organisations could learn from their mistakes. But they had to capture their insights. They needed a memory and a way to get access to it. This might have inspired the concept of knowledge management.

Most people have had experience of the amnesic organisation where the same errors are made repeatedly. Or the ESN organisation, which seems very slow to learn.

But is the problem learning or unlearning? Dennis Sherwood, an innovation guru, argues that certain organisational cultures seem powerfully against new ideas, practices, structures and strategies. They have a problem letting go of the old and stopping doing what is familiar. If (and if only) the environment were stable; if things were like they have always been; if customers didn’t change in their needs and expectations. If original processes and structures remained efficient…then no problem. But otherwise the unlearning, the anti-innovation, the non-creative organisations become anachronistic, inefficient and incompetent. In short, doomed.

What characterises an unlearning organisation? First, they see process, policies and the like as fixed not temporary. To be fit-for-purpose means being aware of sell-by dates. It means understanding that what works at one time (low inflation, minimal competition, key targets) does not necessarily work now. It means constant review to ascertain appropriateness, fitness and efficiency. But unlearning organisations like rule-following not rule-breaking, continuity not change. And neither evolution nor revolution.

Second, the unlearning organisation seems prepared to innovate only in the face of failure, even catastrophe. They stop gaps and make-and-mend. They don’t look to improve on processes even when they work.

Third, they seem slow to praise but quick to chide. They seem not to realise that if things do not go according to plan this can be seen as a good learning opportunity, rather than a disappointing failure.

Fourth, the unlearning organisation is driven by the tyranny of the urgent. They claim they have no time for imagining, for exploration, for blue skies thinking. If you don’t put innovation, development, progress in the diary you won’t get it.

Unlearning organisations are hard of hearing. Their customers and their staff give feedback, make suggestions, point out problems. But no-one is there to listen. The unlearning organisations has no process to learn from their staff, by introducing tools such as climate surveys, and no fora to discuss and reward good ideas.

Unlearning organisations are often characterised by internal competition and secrecy rather than co-operation, openness and sharing. Yes, you guessed it they have silos not networks; staff don’t see themselves as part of the organisation as a whole; they don’t like sharing information, resources and especially risk.

Unlearning organisations default on none yet it can’t be done. They specialise in a range of expressions and phrases which are all pro status quo and anti change. ‘Let’s try it’; ‘Why not?’, or ‘Let’s us have a go’ are not part of their vocabulary.

Unlearning organisations are super-good at evaluations and judgement. It may be one of the few things they really do quickly. But often too quickly. They know how to kill an idea before it can really develop. They know it is best to stop any innovation before it can become obviously appealing.

Unlearning organisations don’t have innovation or creativity or imagination as competencies to be selected for, manage or rewarded. Such attributes are not really seen as important. Indeed they are often thought as dangerous and undesirable.

Is the concept of innovation core to the organisation? Does the board, the top team or even senior management think it is central to their survival, competitive advantage, future profitability? Is there a process to manage innovation? The answer in unlearning organisations is the ever familiar concept: NO!

Manager of Special Projects in unlearning organisations is a euphemism for side-lined senior managers who won’t go. The process of successful innovation requires the forming and managing of project teams tasked with driving the business. There is a skill to picking them and managing them that unlearning organisations never deliver..

But most of all the unlearning organisation is characterised by pervasive risk-aversion. The status quo is comfortable and apparently secure. The world is stable, predictable and orderly. Alas that is an illusion. the unlearning organisation does risk badly. Its expectations of the success and failure of innovation are both wrong.