Importance of Unlearning in Change Management

Everyone talks about enablement. But no one talks about unlearning. We act like the hardest part of Customer Success or Product is teaching people something new. It’s not. The hardest part is getting them to let go of what used to work. 🧠 A spreadsheet someone’s used for a decade 🧠 A report they’ve recreated 100 times 🧠 A process that feels familiar--even when it's slowing them down I used to jump straight into feature training and walkthroughs. Now? I start with one question: “What would it take for this to feel easier than what you're doing now?” That shift changed everything: ✅ I stopped leading with the “how” and leaned into the “why” ✅ I prioritized co-creating with users, not just configuring for them ✅ I stopped obsessing over adoption metrics and started asking what success actually looked like to them Because transformation doesn’t start with a login. It starts when someone feels the relief of a better way. Tools don’t change behavior. Belief does. #Salesforce #CustomerSuccess #ChangeManagement #DigitalAdoption #Enablement #UX #MindsetShift

Why is change so hard? I see GTM changes fail all the time. Not because the new strategy was wrong - but because the organization wasn’t given a way to unlearn and move away from the old one. Change can’t just be additive. You have to remove things to make room for it. Think about getting healthy: 💪 You start working out, eating better, drinking more water. All great steps. BUT, if you don’t stop eating fast food, drinking soda, or skipping sleep - the benefits won't show up. You’ll be doing more, but not seeing results, and you’ll end up exhausted and frustrated. The same thing happens in GTM orgs. You identify problems. You build a new playbook. You train the team and rally the org behind it. And GO! But… You never clearly told anyone what they need to stop doing. So when things get stressful, unclear, or messy, the team falls back to doing what’s familiar. Old habits re-emerge. And leaders start wondering why change isn’t working - and why everyone’s feeling burned out. It’s because new behaviors were added, but old ones weren’t removed. That creates confusion, overlap, and friction. And when results stall, people assume the change didn’t work - when in reality, the transition was incomplete. Here’s how to avoid this common situation: 👉 Be crystal clear about what needs to stop 👉 Reinforce changes consistently — one kickoff doesn’t rewire habits 👉 Update tooling, dashboards, and feedback loops to reflect the new motion 👉 Give teams time and coaching to relearn and rebuild behaviors If you’re changing or evolving any part of your GTM system, take time to design a path to leave behind the old, or the new will never take hold. Change without subtraction just creates chaos. #changemanagement #gtmsystem #SaaS #gtmefficiency

THE UNLEARNING CURVE: WHAT’S YOUR OUTDATED THINKING COSTING YOU That skill you've mastered might be exactly what's holding you back. We celebrate learning curves but rarely acknowledge their equally important counterpart: the unlearning curve. Often innovative leaders aren't just quick studies – they're expert forgetters. Because sometimes progress isn't about adding new knowledge. It's about shedding outdated approaches that no longer serve you. What got you here won't necessarily get you there. I actually see this a lot in coaching: A founder needing to grow past IC work into managing a team and delegating. This means letting go of the hands-on approach that built the company and instead embracing systems and developing others. The very skills that made them successful—technical expertise, personal problem-solving, direct control—can become limitations that prevent the company from scaling. An exec going from specialist to visionary leader responsible for bringing others along on the journey. This requires abandoning the identity of the go-to expert in the room and instead learning to synthesize diverse perspectives, communicate a compelling vision, and create environments where others can excel. Success now comes from enabling collective achievement rather than personal technical brilliance. The unlearning curve looks like: 😮 Admitting a long-held belief might be wrong 🚫 Abandoning a process you've perfected that's now obsolete 💨 Releasing an identity that's comfortable but limiting ❓Questioning your "that's just how it's done" assumptions IBM demonstrated powerful unlearning when they shifted their core business from hardware to services and cloud computing – deliberately moving away from what had made them successful for decades. As a result, they transformed a declining company into a leader in new markets. Can you name one thing you used to believe or do that you’ve since decided to shed? *** I’m Jennifer Kamara, founder of Kamara Life Design. Enjoy this? Repost to share with your network, and follow me for actionable strategies to design businesses and lives with meaning. Want to go from good to world-class? Join our community of subscribers today: https://lnkd.in/d6TT6fX5 

Can I hold my own? I wondered that as I shared my research on #Unlearning with an elite group of military leaders. While I have immense respect for those who served and I grew up around military personnel, my knowledge base of rank, terminology, and procedures is extremely limited. There was so much internal pressure for me to try to “fit in” and resonate with the group. Fortunately, the leader knew me well and told me that my value-add was my differentiation. My civilian insight was important, he said. So, scared but trusting, I leaned in. I explained how we are often conditioned to work off of “muscle memory” and instinct. However, that conditioning doesn’t always serve us well. In fact, it can get us killed. I connected my research to the story of Mann Gulch: Smoke jumpers who met their demise trying to out-run a fire while laden down with their heavy equipment. But one leader, Wag Dodge, used #Unlearning to create an escape fire path of safety. Others thought he was crazy-he was going against training and against instinct…but he was reading the present variables. He knew that he had to do something different in order to survive. He did. My research partners and I define unlearning as “reducing the reliance on past experiences as predictors of future outcomes”. We say you must create a cognitive pause to assess your current reality and then take deliberate action. How often do you respond with intention instead of react with instinct? How often are you agile instead of adaptable? How often does muscle memory or trained behaviour dull your awareness of your current situation? How often does going through the motions yield exemplary results for you? Throughout the talk, these brilliant and brave leaders took copious notes. Despite me not knowing all the ins-and-outs of their world, I was able to offer value. Why? Because they were willing to unlearn. Happy Growing! -M. #MullMentum #NarrativeLeadership #GenerationalMentorship

The Hardest Work Isn’t Learning—It’s Unlearning... I’ve always prided myself on being a lifelong learner. Books, research, workshops—you name it, I’m in. But lately, I’ve realized that my biggest challenge isn’t learning something new. It’s unlearning what I thought I knew. Alvin Toffler once said: "The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn." Sit with that for a second. Because unlearning isn’t just about updating knowledge—it’s about questioning the very foundations of how we think. In my work with strategic foresight, we address this in the Discovery phase. It’s where we challenge assumptions, confront biases, and examine the deep narratives that shape our decisions. And one of the most powerful tools for this is Causal Layered Analysis (CLA). CLA isn’t just about what’s happening—it digs deeper into why it’s happening: 🔹 What’s visible? (Trends & problems we notice) 🔹 What’s beneath the surface? (Systems & structures reinforcing them) 🔹 What worldview enables this? (The beliefs we take for granted) 🔹 What myths or metaphors hold it in place? (The deep stories we tell ourselves) If we truly want to create change—whether in our businesses, our communities, or our personal lives—this is the level we have to work at. Because meaningful transformation doesn’t come from tweaking processes. It comes from shifting paradigms. And that starts with unlearning. So here I am, in my unlearning era. Letting go of assumptions. Challenging inherited perspectives. Making room for something new. I'd love to know, What’s something you’ve had to unlearn lately? #Foresight #Unlearning #CausalLayeredAnalysis #FutureThinking #SystemsChange #Leadership #StrategicForesight