Some of the ways we work today were built for circumstances that no longer exist. What happens when the assumptions that once helped us move forward start getting in the way?

A belief can start as a sensible response to experience. Something works, we repeat it, and eventually it becomes part of how we make decisions without giving it much thought.

The problem comes when the world around that belief changes.

New technology arrives. Customer expectations shift. Teams work differently. What once helped us move forward can quietly start creating friction instead.

That is where unlearning becomes useful.

To help you explore the idea and apply it to your own work, we’ve brought together two resources: the recording of the 30 Things We Thought We Knew webinar and a practical workbook for identifying and testing assumptions of your own.

What does it mean to unlearn?

Unlearning means taking a closer look at the assumptions behind how we work and asking whether they still make sense in our current context.

That doesn’t mean throwing away everything we know. Sometimes an existing belief still works. Sometimes part of it needs updating. And sometimes it is time to try something different. The important part is making those assumptions visible enough to examine them.

At Hyper Island, we recently explored this idea in 30 Things We Thought We Knew, a webinar about the assumptions we carry with us and what happens when the world around them changes.

Watch the webinar recording

Put unlearning into practice

Recognising an outdated assumption is one thing. Changing how you act on it takes practice.

The Unlearning Workbook gives you a practical way to do that. Through four guided exercises, you’ll:

  • identify a belief or assumption shaping how you work
  • examine what has changed around it
  • decide what is still useful and what may need to change
  • turn it into a more useful working principle
  • design a small experiment to test that principle in practice

The goal is to leave with something you can actually try, rather than simply another idea to think about.

Ready to challenge an old assumption?

Download "The Unlearning Workbook" and choose one belief, habit or way of working to put to the test.



Hyper Island
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Article updated on: 23 September 2026