The Unlearning Organisation

Abstract

Business innovation involves multiple, often‐repeated phases of idea generation, evaluation, development and implementation. This article focuses on the first of these, idea generation. The author describes a technique for converting our existing knowledge, learning and experience – often the main barrier to innovation – into the raw material for innovation. Illustrating the argument with examples of cases where the technique has been successfully applied, he concludes by setting out five steps ‘which make up the unlearning process’.