Learn, unlearn, relearn

Tomorrow's illiterate will not be the man who can't read; he will be the man who has not learned how to learn.

• Herbert Gerjuoy[1]

I was remminded of this statement while reading the early release of Learning Systems Thinking. Diana Montalion describes...

We've been amassing a pile of reasons for our failings since the "software crisis" began in the 1960s, as complexity was increasing. Then, since, and now, the reason is the same: we can't change our thinking fast enough to keep up. The skills we need no longer fit the stereotypical Lone Supernerd coding while eating pizza at 2am. No one can do it alone. Technology skills (alone) are not enough.

From my experinece it seems this will continue for some time. In corporate contexts this type of insight and the practices that accompany it tend to come from everywhere but the top.

Hard skills are easy, and soft skills are hard.

Not only that, they are in many places and ways more important than hard skills, even while the hard skills are more foundationally necessary.

[^1] This quote has often been misattributed, once upon a time by myself, to Alvin Toffler. With slight variation, he was said to have said, "The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn." I like this version, whoever said it, for the inclusion of unlearning and relearning.