We carry so much accumulated sediment on our backs. Layers of beliefs built over years. Childhood rules about who gets to speak. School conditioning that equated speed with intelligence. Workplace cultures that rewarded compliance over curiosity, a pattern that still plays out strongly, especially in institutional setups. In the name of “best practices”, we have quietly traded away innovation, along with the excitement and adventure that comes with it. A friend recently asked me, almost as a provocation, “Are you willing to learn to unlearn?” The question stayed longer than the conversation. Because unlearning begins with a simple but uncomfortable act which is becoming aware of our own muscle memory.
In professional teams, this shows up in a specific and costly way. When the iPhone launched in 2007, BlackBerry’s CEO watched the demo and laughed. His mastery of what phones had made him blind to what they could become. Within five years, 50% market share became nearly zero. Kodak too faced the same fate. In 1975, a Kodak engineer invented the first digital camera. However, Kodak’s executives refused to unlearn their core identity: they believed they were a chemical film company, not an image company. They buried the invention to protect film sales. By refusing to unlearn their business model, Kodak handed the future to competitors, ultimately filing for bankruptcy in 2012.
These two stories from the sports world will startle us up. Sports science had always declared running a mile under four minutes physiologically impossible. Athletes trained within that ceiling, unconsciously. Roger Bannister broke it in May 1954. Within 12 months, 37 runners did the same. Within two years, 300 had. An entire generation of athletes had been underperforming from an unexamined belief nobody had thought to question. Similarly, for decades, basketball prized what’s popular as the medium distance shot. By 2015, analytics proved it was the least efficient way to score. Franchises refusing to unlearn this habit watched adopters like the Golden State Warriors win four championships by simply trusting the math.
Now, in a world that’s prone to change so actively, being hooked to philosophies or mindsets without questioning their effectiveness is going against evolution. I follow Ray Dalio, Founder of Bridgewater Associates, one of the world’s largest hedge fund companies, for his investment acumen and his principles on learning. But In 1982, Ray Dalio’s absolute certainty about a depression cost him everything, forcing him to borrow $4,000 to survive. To build a $150 billion fund, he had to unlearn his ego. Like evolution, survival demands rapidly discarding obsolete traits. It is then he founded the ‘Loop Principle’, of crashing, diagnosing, and improving which is the cognitive equivalent of Darwinian evolution. Ultimately, whether you are a species clinging to an outdated biological mechanism or a professional defending a disrupted strategy, the consequence of refusing to unlearn is the same: extinction.
My friend’s question was a provocation, “So, how do we actually Unlearn?” It might sound counterintuitive, but it is an evolutionary tax for survival. Organizations spend trillions on transformation initiatives, yet 70% fail. Why? Because they skip the evolutionary step of shedding outdated “survival architecture”. We cannot build new thinking on unexamined old thinking. The common new age corporate problems we are talking about are empathy, problem solving, responsible AI usage, decision ownership, feedback integrity, judgement strengthening, among many others.
We need to embrace that Unlearning is a skill that can be coached, not just an act of will. Sometimes, the systems are so ingrained in the DNA of the organization that it requires a neutral party to look at it from a detached view and remove or upgrade historical systems and structures. Their first steps in Unlearning are subtle, and structured interventions. Through delicate phased processes, they guide teams to gently let go of habits, biases, beliefs and assumptions. Because these are the human conditions which are required to execute change. Unlearning is a delicate act as it unravels the seemingly normal. There are high chances of a feud between denial and acceptance. It’s therefore backed by sciences including psychology and change management. It is very contextual and is not an intangible philosophy. If you rush straight into problem-solving, your team simply walks into the room armed with old answers disguised as new ideas. Ingrained habits, confirmation biases, and untested assumptions silently hijack the entire process.
Evolution is ruthless to those who carry unnecessary weight. Paying to unlearn is not an admission of failure; it is the ultimate strategic advantage. In a landscape of constant disruption, organizations that refuse to pay this evolutionary tax today will inevitably pay with their extinction tomorrow.
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