When experience becomes obstacle

Successful executives carry valuable baggage with them: years of experience, methodologies that have already yielded results, management practices that have proven effective in different contexts. It is precisely this experience that places them in leadership positions and gives them credibility in front of teams. But there is a paradox: What got us here could be exactly what stops us from moving forward.

We live in a time where changes happen at a rapid pace. The customer no longer just compares price, but rather the complete experience that a brand is capable of offering. Talents are not satisfied with just salary and benefits, but seek purpose and coherence between discourse and practice. Markets no longer reward just repetitive efficiency, but rather the ability to adapt, innovate and find new paths in the face of complexity. In this cen & aacute; rio, the accumulated experience, which in other times was synonymous with security, can turn into a silent trap.

This is where the least discussed — and perhaps most important — skill of contemporary leadership emerges.: or unlearn. Different from simply forgetting or throwing away what you know, unlearning is having the courage to give up certainties that no longer serve you, question established truths and give space for new practices to flourish. It is an exercise in intellectual humility and openness to new things.. Companies that did not make this move paid dearly: legal, stuck to the formulas that once worked, but they became irrelevant in a short time. On the other hand, organizations like Netflix or Microsoft reinvented themselves precisely because they had the courage to let go of the past.

The challenge of unlearning is not just rational, but also emotional. There is discomfort in admitting that something that has already brought us results today no longer makes sense.. There is an ego and identity cost when we need to let go of narratives that have defined us. But it is exactly in this process that the possibility of reinvention is born.. The executive who unlearns opens up space to relearn and, like this, creates conditions to lead your organization into the future.

In the course I developed on this topic, We work with tools that help make this process less abstract and more practical. One of them is the “Map of Certainties”, which invites the executive to list his beliefs about the market, customers or management, and then question which of these convictions still hold. The simple exercise of asking “what real evidence do I have that this is still valid?”?” already opens up a powerful space for reflection. Often, the obstacle to innovation is not a lack of resources or talent, but in ancient beliefs that remain untouched.

If you want to try a tease right now, take a test: Choose three certainties that you consider unquestionable about your business and ask yourself how you would react if tomorrow you discovered that they were all wrong. What opportunities would arise? What risks would reveal themselves?? This small gesture is already the beginning of a mentality of unlearning. And even if these certainties remain valid in the future, you will have already opened space for new ideas.

Companies that cultivate this practice in their culture are able to eliminate obsolete processes more quickly, become more agile to innovate and attract talents who want to be in continuous learning environments. More than ever, who knows more doesn't win, but who can learn — and, before that, unlearn — faster.

Maybe the question remains for you, executive, be simple and direct: what from your current practice is no longer useful for tomorrow? The answer may bother, but it is exactly from this discomfort that transformation is born.