“The curious thing is that with these exponential changes, so much of what we currently know is just getting to be wrong. So many of our assumptions are getting to be wrong. As so, as we move forward, not only is it going to be a question of learning it is also going to be a question of unlearning.” -John Seely Brown
We live in a time of deep fog, providing us murky views of a future clouded in ambiguity, uncertainty and a plethora of unknowns. A time proliferated by dynamic and competing tensions, amplified frictions pulling and tugging us through an ongoing reel of plausible and possible future scenarios and narratives.
In many ways, our current context feels as if we are reminiscing through Willie Wonka’s tunnel of terror boat ride. Much like the movie, for some, the tunnel proved to be an exhilarating joy to be experienced, while for other passengers, it was an expedition that proved itself to be an entirely terrifying event. A journey into the unknown that they could not wait too disembark from.
And only to make matters worse, as the ride accelerated, Willie Wonka continued to add to their growing unease with an ongoing litany of agitated and somewhat disturbed vocals…
“There is no earthly way of knowing which direction we are going?”
“There is no knowing where we are rowing, or which way the river’s flowing?”
“The danger must be growing, for the rowers keep on rowing, and they are certainly not showing, any signs that they are slowing!”
For many of us, it feels as if we are currently riding through Willie Wonka’s tunnel, not sure “which direction we are going?” Not sure, “Where we are rowing?” And definitely sure it is “Certainly not showing any signs that it is slowing!”
We are struggling, struggling to determine where the present is taking us and what future awaits us at the other end of this tunnel and ride we are on. While, at the very same time, each of us is perceiving the journey in our own way, through our own lens, our own mental models, activated by our own context and circumstances.
As any disruptive change will effectively do, it is amplifying the tensions of our times…
In the midst of any disruption, change does not always come at us in ways we expect or have time to prepare for. Many disruptions can be disarming in their often abrupt arrival, requiring deep reframing and adjustments to our mental models so that we can just begin to make sense of the current circumstances and context that we now find ourselves thrust into. Which means, if we have allowed our mental models to exist in stasis, to be structured in static understandings based in outdated and often irrelevant frameworks, we might find our current circumstances and context to be overwhelming, to say the least.
In many ways, in regards to our mental models, we can unfortunately create our own personal fog that internally confines us from cognitively connecting and from building deeper awareness towards the external changes we are experiencing and the disruptions that may very well be coming for and at us.
When mental models become entrenched, change is something we insulate from, rather than lean into…
In today’s world, one of accelerated and often disruptive change, we have to continually tune and retune our mental models. We have to create the cognitive “beta” space that allows us to continuously involve ourselves in iterating our mental models to our context, our circumstances, and the myriad of factors that are having deep and dynamic influence upon that environment, physically, emotionally, and cognitively. Which takes us back to that idea of competing tensions…
Especially the competing tensions of knowing and not knowing, the tension between learning and unlearning, and what that tension requires of us.
We live in a time when our mental models are constantly being challenged, which means we need to constantly challenge our mental models. We have to engage our own internal talk towards allowing us to continuously question our current understandings and assumptions, and not allow us to entrench in those same understandings and assumptions. Which, will undoubtedly require an intentional willingness to consciously reflect, provoke, inquire, investigate, alter, and revamp our mental models.
On an ongoing basis…
And to complete this cycle (ongoing and iterative), we must be willing to not only learn, but also create cognitive space for new learning by intentionally unlearning the knowledge, behaviors, understandings, assumptions, and misconceptions that are not only no longer useful or valid, but tend to keep our mental models suspended in the status quo, hurtling towards future irrelevancy.
It will only be through this cognitive intentionality, combined with a greater awareness towards present changes, as well as a forecasting of possible disruptions that loom on the horizon…
That we can begin to determine our learning voids, as well as a unlearning needs.
It is this iterative cycle of learning and unlearning, of ossifying and chipping away, that we can begin to mentally move in much more agile and adaptive ways. It is in these cycles of learning and unlearning that we become much more open too engaging a variety of lens’ that allows for a diversity and divergence in our thinking and how we frame both change, and even disruption. It is in this cognitive space that we allow new possibilities to be considered. It is in this space where we allow new insights to color our lens and provoke new frames of connection and understanding. It is in this space that we create opportunity for our internal and external worlds to learn to parallel pace each other.
And it is in this space that new interpretations of the future can be imagined moving forward…
It is in this space that we not only evolve, but allow for a much more authentic emergence of our mental models that open up new capacity towards the future. It is here that our capabilities are stretched, new core competencies are discovered and determined, ultimately moving and shifting our mental models into a more adaptive and agile state.
It is in this space that learning and unlearning take on a new importance.
“We must be willing to sit on the edge of mystery and unlearn what has helped guide us in the past but is no longer useful.” -Robert Wicks
DCulberhouse 