Key Takeaways:
After years doing something in a certain way, you get really good at it. You develop expertise, confidence, momentum, and at times you stop questioning whether there is a better way.
Then technology changes, the industry evolves and suddenly you are faced with a choice. That choice can be either you defend what you know or unlearn it to make room for what's emerging. As I evolve in my career I chose to make room for what’s emerging in facilities management.
Unlearning sounds simple. However, it is not easy. It is the difference between staying relevant in your field and becoming that person whose colleagues politely work around because you are stuck in how things used to be done. The saying of “set in your ways” finds a new meaning.
What has unlearning taught me in facilities management and what can it teach facilities professionals looking to evolve and stay relevant and evolving? Unlearning is not forgetting. It's actively letting go of the certainty that your current approach is the best approach. It requires critical thinking and is essential for any facilities professional.
You must keep questioning your own assumptions, asking whether what worked yesterday will work tomorrow, examining your methods with the same rigor you would apply to anyone else's work.
Relearning is then filling that mental space with new information, new skills, new ways of thinking grounded in genuine understanding, not just adoption. Unlearning and relearning can also be forced. The reason I say this is to look at the pandemic of 2020. We had no choice but to adapt. To unlearn workplace habits and relearn new ones to ensure business operations and human survival worked together.
For years, I fought for computerized maintenance management software (CMMS) while my organization resisted. They had spreadsheets that worked. They had processes that functioned. They got results. So, they questioned why we needed specialized facilities software. I had to do the critical thinking for them and analyze industry standards, documenting our inefficiencies, showing that 85 percent of facilities managers already used facilities software for good reason. My organization had to unlearn the certainty that our manual approach was sufficient.
What made me curious was that this was not about me being resistant to change. This was about organizational inertia preventing necessary evolution.
Finally, securing CMMS software in the budget validated what I had been saying about ensuring that specialized tools handle complexity better. They free teams to focus on strategic thinking instead of manual data compilation. They enable growth that spreadsheets simply cannot support. I did not resist the technology, but instead I fought for it.
That experience taught me something crucial about unlearning that sometimes you are not the one who needs to unlearn. Sometimes your role as a leader is helping others unlearn their resistance to necessary change. It's influencing people to think critically about what's keeping them stuck, encouraging them to examine whether their certainty actually serves the organization or just protects their comfort.
The AI conversation happening in facilities management right now reveals this same pattern. Some organizations dismiss it as hype. Others adopt it blindly. But the critical thinking question is not whether to embrace or resist but to ask instead where could this actually improve how we manage facilities?
Where would it create problems? What is real capability versus marketing? That is the unlearning that leads to intelligent and sustainable adaptation.
The long-term view changes everything. Today's technology decisions shape tomorrow's facilities management capacity. Today's willingness to unlearn organizational inertia determines whether we're leading change or being left behind.
The facilities managers staying relevant are not defending old methods. They are learning what the industry is already doing, asking critical questions about their current approaches and influencing their teams and organizations to evolve with the field.
That is how we develop the next generation of facilities leaders who stay current, think critically and help others advance.
Unlearning makes space for all of that. Sometimes, unlearning means letting go of resistance to change you should have embraced years ago.
Maria Ruiz is a Facilities Operations Manager at UNICEF USA with 15+ years of cross-sector expertise. Overseeing multiple national offices, she applies Lean Six Sigma methodologies to create sustainable, efficient workspaces supporting humanitarian missions. Her writing champions women in facilities management by blending technical knowledge with practical insights that empower professionals in this traditionally male-dominated field.
