Improvement Insights Blog

Sometimes you have to forget something to learn something new. Sometimes you have to try to solve a problem to be able to learn how to correctly solve problems.

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“Hi, I’m Jay Arthur, author of “Lean Six Sigma For Hospitals” and QI Macros [software].

“I read kind of an interesting book recently, it’s called “Make It Stick,” which is the science of successful learning. In there, the author argues that remembering and learning and forgetting are key pieces of all that, and sometimes you have to forget things to be able to learn something new.

“I found that many of us who were dipped in Quality Improvement in the last century are still trying to regurgitate the crap that was taught then. You know, as Paul Simon says, ‘When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school, it’s a wonder I can think at all.’ Sometimes we have to forget things to be able to learn anew.

“The author also said it’s better to solve a problem than to memorize a solution. I like to get people right into problem solving and not learning a bunch of crap beforehand (‘a priori’ learning) and then it’s better to attempt a solution and fail because you can learn something. You learn something in the attempt. It’s better to do that and fail than to not make the attempt.

“So what do you need to forget so you can learn something new? What problem do you need to attempt to solve, even if you don’t think you know how to solve it? Sometime in the act of trying to figure it out you end up discovering there’s an answer somewhere, or there’s a way forward.

“So that’s my Improvement Insight. Let’s go out and improve something this week… like what’s in between our ears.”