An Ambidextrous Organization is an organizational development concept coined by R. Duncan (1976) to indicate an organization’s ability to be aligned and efficient in its management of today’s business demands as well as being adaptive to changes in the external environment. Ambidexterity is achieved by balancing exploration (search, variation, risk-taking, experimentation, flexibility, discovery or innovation) with exploitation (refinement, choice, production, efficiency, selection, implementation, and execution).
As many publishers in knowledge management would argue, unlearning is the only way of removing old mental models. It is only by removing old mental models from employees that an organization can be able to transform in conformity with changing external factors and competitions.
Unlearning may be the real challenge of learning. It may be simply characterized as the process of letting go of what is known, with openness and freshness of mind, to create fresh space for new learning to take root. It involves habits one has carried for many years. Learning is intimately part of the elaboration of a system—indeed almost synonymous with it. However, in discovering what must change, the greatest difficulties are often found in its structures and patterns. Consciously reading, assessing, and unlearning these will become fundamental. Ultimately, one may have to concede that it is not policies, strategies, processes, tools, methods, and approaches that define the core and quality of practice but the past, present, and future, and the openness, judgment, intuition, creativity, integrity, and strength that one can muster to face these that do. In large bureaucratic organizations, unlearning also involves risk and requires psychological safety and the trust on which that rests, and both may be in short supply.
Book Learning for Change in ADB
I would recommend you tackle this issue from an individual-level perspective.
For example:
Matsuo, M. (2017). Managers’ exploration activities and individual unlearning: The mediating role of learning orientation and reflection. The International Journal of Human Research Management, 31(5), 638–656. 10.1080/09585192.2017.1362022.
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