Continuing from an earlier post on  THE PARAMETERS OF THE LEARNING ECONOMY: LEARNING AND SKILLING, Dilip Mukerjea writes in his new book, Learning How to Learn (not yet released; still in the works; this is a sneak preview!):

Innovating Innovation 

A 3Cs strategy can serve as a foundation for shaping opportunities to create significant value: 

Consider, Create, Consolidate. 

Consider what to focus upon, 

Create possibilities out of your focal options, via smart techniques, then 

Consolidate the decisions and actions that emerge from your considerations and creations. 

They integrate strategic, operational and organisational initiatives into pragmatic skills to deliver near-term performance improvement and longer-term capability building. 

Today, most of the world’s brilliant people are not members of any single team but are distributed all over the planet in diverse institutions. Increasingly, innovations occur at the interstices between different disciplines — between, for example, biotech and nano technologies, genetics and robotics, information and telecommunications. 

Organisations need to find ways to leverage the disparate intellectual assets of people who see the world differently and who use unique tools and methods. Such people are likely to work both in different disciplines and in different institutions. 

Discovering and leveraging successful ways to work with them will lie at the heart of innovating innovation. 

Today’s computers have the power to simulate massively complex, nonlinear systems, coupled to phenomenal visualisation techniques; they enable the customer to be brought ever closer to the design process. 

Two principal sources of learning are: 

‘learning by doing’ — via actions and interactions, and ‘learning while waiting’ — what is discovered from markets during product development. 

Keep learning in both modes, so as to stay current, creative, and competitive. Innovation is transforming the business landscape. 

The global economy is characterised by intensifying competition. New relationships will emerge from ‘accelerated capability building’, widely believed to be the most powerful source of strategic advantage. Scan the edges of business ecosystems, and explore the core of corporate consciousness, to discover catalysts for creative capability building. 

LEARNING UNLEARNING RELEARNING REBUILDING 

This is a four-step cycle that we experience from infancy, but without elaborate prior knowledge. But as adults, we must reframe our consciousness and understand what these steps mean and the value inherent in them: 

Learning can take place through formal education or informal training. 

Formal education involves attending classes and studying books while informal training takes place when someone teaches us something by example. 

Unlearning means letting go of old habits and ways of thinking that are no longer relevant. This happens naturally over time as we mature and gain experience. 

However, sometimes we need to consciously unlearn bad habits and negative beliefs. 

Relearning is similar to unlearning except that instead of letting go of old habits, we replace them with positive ones. When we re-learn something, 

We use the same knowledge base but apply it differently. For example, if you were good at math before, you might find yourself using different strategies to solve problems today.

It is necessary to learn, unlearn and relearn at any stage in life, but in the modern professional context, it calls upon us to consistently revamp our skills and upgrade our knowledge so as to keep pace with the rapidly changing world. This cycle enable us to expand our horizons, change our paradigms, and transform our possibilities. 

As long as we keep growing, we will continue to move forward towards achieving our goals.It provides us with valuable insights into how to deal with challenges and obstacles along the way. It keeps us sharp and relevant. 

With age comes wisdom and maturity. But without learning, we would remain immature forever. It improves communication skills, without which, we cannot effectively lead teams, manage projects, negotiate deals, persuade clients, influence stakeholders, and lead a fulfilling life. 

This cycle then upscales through a synthesis that enables us to re-build out status quo, and advance well into the distant future. 

Shift. Learn. Transform. 

This is the triunity of experiences that comprise the dynamics in our quest for the best.