Unlearning Some of our Social Scientist Habits

According to the organizational learning literature, some of the most important learning an organization can do is in the form of organizational unlearning—getting rid of erroneous or dysfunctional knowledge, habits, and practices. Simply adding new skills, behaviors, and ways of thinking isn’t enough. Without some explicit attention to the process of unlearning, existing knowledge and know- how becomes a barrier to constructive change and new learning.
The same is true in evaluation. Many of us had our primary training in the social sciences, which imbued us with a set of knowledge, skills, practices, and habits that are considered good practice in those disciplines. When we moved into evaluation, we became aware that there was something more that we needed to know (apart from social science research skills), and many of us set about adding to our repertoire so we could practice good evaluation. But how well have we paid attention to unlearning some of the baggage we brought with us from the social sciences?