As the father of two home-schooled children, it’s fascinating how many different types of schooling there actually is. One that’s been gaining traction lately is the concept of ‘unschooling’ – the idea behind it is that you foster and encourage the natural impulse of the child to learn by letting them follow their interests rather than a structured, rote-driven curriculum.

It sounds radical because in its purest form, it is.

It challenges the holy cows and while it runs the risk of throwing the baby out with the bathwater – the emphasis is on learning how to think for yourself.

The results of which are interesting. A recent study of adults who had been unschooled through their childhood had the following findings:

“All but three of the 75 respondents felt the advantages of unschooling clearly outweighed the disadvantages. Almost all said they benefited from having had the time and freedom to discover and pursue their personal interests, giving them a head start on figuring out their career preferences and developing expertise in relevant areas. Seventy percent also said “the experience enabled them to develop as highly self-motivated, self-directed individuals.”

I can’t help but notice the parallel with a common problem that many of my clients and peers are observing:

– – a lack of thought and strategy around change management.

Rote-learned frameworks and templates mean that people just copy and paste what they think should be there so they can ‘tick the box’. Then everyone acts surprised when the adoption efforts fail…

So, stop gating your projects based on whether or not a document exists! That’s a pretty low bar.