Adult Learning There have been occasions during my career that required cultural unlearning and building cross-cultural relationships, although I was unfamiliar with the concepts at the time. I was still inclined to accept the institutional learning that I had been programmed with. One such occasion happened on the job when I found out that I would be reporting to a new supervisor. It turned out there was a need for cultural unlearning on my part to make our work relationship successful.

My new boss' sexual orientation initially appeared to me to be out of the norm. My need for unlearning was not especially deep, lucky for me, but there was some mental adjustment required. My preconceptions involved judgments about who would be an appropriate partner. Before our first meeting, it occurred to me that my boss might wonder if I had any such preconceptions, which were after all, fairly common from what I saw all around me. I guessed he was probably used to it, so would he be looking for signs of intolerance on my part?

I had unknowingly begun the process of unlearning, by...

That willingness on my part to try to look at things from his point-of-view was the start of our successful workplace relationship.
I didn't know it at the time, but I had taken the first steps toward phenomenal reduction. As Vail describes it, I had decided "to try to let the thing we encounter be what it is, separate from our perception of it" (1996, p. 161). I was motivated primarily by self-interest; I wanted to have a good workplace relationship with my boss, who could affect my chances for promotion. So I approached our first meeting with a somewhat open mind. Specifically I was looking for common ground, for areas of agreement that we could build on. I had no idea I had stumbled upon another element of what Vail describes as Keen's approach to unlearning, imaginative variation, "combining and recombining of the various modes of the situation's being" (1996, pp.161-162).

I didn't know what to expect from my first meeting…