When the FIFA World Cup 26 kicked off on Thursday 11 June, some of the world’s best footballers were asked to do something deceptively hard: let go of what makes them successful every week at club level and adapt, fast, to a completely different context. And in the biggest tournament ever – 48 teams, 104 matches, 16 host cities – that demand for rapid adaptation only grows.
Think about someone like Jude Bellingham. At club level he may be used one way, but for England he must fit the balance of the team, the manager’s game plan and the needs of different teammates. The talent doesn’t disappear. What matters is whether they can unlearn quickly enough to be effective in a new system.
There’s a workplace word for that: learning agility. And in a world where roles, markets, teams and technology keep shifting, it may be one of the most valuable capabilities we have.
Unlearning is a workplace skill
The modern workplace is full of moments like this. Move to a new company and the habits that made you successful in one culture may suddenly get in your way. Step into leadership and what got you promoted – being the expert, having the answers, doing the work yourself – is no longer enough. Join a global, cross-functional team and you quickly discover that different markets, personalities and ways of working require a different game altogether. Just like elite footballers moving from club to country, high performers at work often need to stop doing what used to work before they can succeed in what comes next.
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Learning agility is the ability and willingness to learn from experience and then apply that learning in new, first-time or unfamiliar situations. In simple terms, it is the capacity to unlearn, relearn and respond well when the context changes. Raw ability may get a player noticed in elite sport, or an employee hired into a role, but neither is enough on its own to keep performing when the environment shifts – and these days it shifts constantly.
The business case is hard to ignore
The business case is hard to ignore. In a widely cited Deloitte survey of more than 10,000 business and HR leaders across 140 countries, 94% said agility and collaboration were critical to their organisation’s success. Korn Ferry found that companies with the highest proportion of learning-agile executives produced 25% higher profit margins than their peers, and that highly agile people were promoted twice as quickly as those with lower learning agility. More recent Korn Ferry commentary also suggests only 15% of the global workforce is considered highly agile, which makes this not just a performance issue, but a real talent challenge.
You could see the same principle in action at Microsoft, where Satya Nadella deliberately pushed a cultural shift from a “know-it-all” mindset to a “learn-it-all” one. That language matters. It reframes growth, curiosity and adaptability as strengths rather than signs of not being ready. And that is the heart of unlearning: not abandoning expertise but holding it lightly enough to keep evolving.
The five dimensions of learning agility
Learning agility is not one thing, and it is not evenly distributed. It tends to show up across five connected dimensions, each of which can be developed deliberately over time:
Mental agility is the ease of adjusting your thinking to new situations, whether you’re moving from the league season to a World Cup or from one team to a global project group. Develop it by rewarding curiosity, problem-solving and open-mindedness, and by deliberately exposing people to work outside their usual lane.
People agility is the ability to adapt your behavior across different social situations, collaborate well and manage interpersonal dynamics with ease – the same skill that enables a world-class player to gel with both club and country teammates. Build it by modeling open communication, active listening and empathy, and by rotating people through different teams and stakeholders.
Change agility describes people who don’t just tolerate change but lean into it. In football, that might be a player being asked to do a different job for the national side and embracing it rather than resisting it. In club football, we’ve seen teams like Manchester City adjust their shape and personnel mid-game when the original plan wasn’t working. The workplace equivalent is the person who volunteers to test the new system, take the unfamiliar brief or step into the messy challenge before anyone else does. If you are looking for change agility in your culture, reward experimentation rather than punishing every imperfect first attempt.
Results agility is the ability to stay focused on the outcome while being flexible about the route. Great teams do this all the time. They go a goal down, tweak the press, change the structure, use the bench differently and still find a way. That ability to adapt under pressure is just as important at work. When the original plan falls apart, results-agile leaders don’t freeze. They regroup, simplify, reallocate and keep moving toward the goal.
Self-awareness ties the other four together. At Insights, we know from our extensive work with teams in business and elite sport, that players and employees who recognize their own strengths and blind spots are more receptive to feedback and more proactive about growth. Understanding personality preferences and developing emotional intelligence can provide individuals with a clearer picture of where they are naturally strong and where they need to stretch.
Learning agility for performance
The World Cup is a brilliant reminder that learning agility is not a soft skill. It is a performance skill. The players who thrive won’t simply be the most talented. They’ll be the ones who can adapt the quickest, read the moment well and apply their strengths in a new system. The same is true in business.
When people can unlearn, relearn and stay open to new ways of working, performance rises, collaboration improves and change becomes far less threatening. In a world that refuses to stand still, that is a serious competitive edge.
Mark Leisegang is a learning and development expert. He is currently Practice Lead – Education, at global people development company Insights.He has delivered more than 250 Insights Discovery workshops, has worked with Executive and Senior Teams across many sectors including financial, tourism, retail, telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, and technology, and has delivered sessions across Africa, APAC, Europe and the Middle East.
- Mark Leisegang
- Mark Leisegang
