Leadership & Culture Keynote Speaker | Carolina Caro, CSP
THE
UNLEARNING
ADVANTAGE™
Evolve Leadership. Align Teams. Transform Culture.
~ One unlearned pattern at a time.
Unlearn yesterday’s success and patterns because the future demands something different to unlock what’s possible next.
TRUSTED BY
THE HIDDEN GAP: Leadership, Culture and the Future of Work
The pace of change is exponential. But most leaders and organizations are evolving linearly, operating from patterns shaped for a different era.
This isn’t a knowledge gap. It’s identity inertia: the unconscious pull to repeat what once worked.
Outdated decisions. Familiar team dynamics. Legacy systems.
We are at an inflection point; one that demands discernment. Yet instead of pausing to unlearn, the default can be rushing to add more knowledge, more tactics, more initiatives. The critical step of letting go is skipped entirely.
Breakthrough doesn’t come from more information.
It comes from unlearning what no longer serves and closing the gap between where you are today and the opportunities the future demands; as individuals, teams, and organizations.
UNLEARNING IN ACTION:
Evidence-Based Insights.
Real-World Impact.
Before stepping onto global stages, Carolina built her career inside some of the world’s most complex environments
First as a scientist in academia, where she began to recognize what drives and disrupts behavior change…
And later at Pfizer and Merck, where she navigated high-pressure leadership and organizational transformation in matrixed systems.
Those experiences gave her a deep understanding of what leaders are up against and a deep respect for the courage it takes to lead differently.
Through those experiences, she discovered a powerful truth: people don’t resist change because they lack information. They resist because they’re attached to the patterns that define who they are.
Her most radical experiment?
ABANDONING HER OWN SUCCESS.
As the first in her immigrant family to earn a graduate degree and land a coveted role at a Fortune 100 company, she had fulfilled every expectation while carrying the weight of sacrifice behind every achievement.
But something deeper called. Walking away from that “success” to attend the Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theatre in New York felt like professional suicide; but it became her turning point. Letting go of who she was supposed to be opened a path greater than she could have imagined.
It’s the same courageous unlearning she now asks of leaders, teams, and organizations.
The Unlearning Advantage™
Organizations navigating rapid transformation need more than incremental change; they need identity-level transformation.
The firm’s proprietary diagnostic tool, the Coherence Index™, measures interference across three levels of coherence: self (for leaders), relational (for teams), and collective (for organizations). It reveals where conditioning and legacy patterns disrupt clarity, trust, an alignment.
The POCA® Model for Unlearning (Pause. Observe. Choose. Act.) provides a practical, repeatable framework to release outdated patterns and embody coherence in action. Once coherence is established, competencies can be built on solid ground.
In this way, the firm’s 12-competency framework, part of The Great Realignment® program, unites leadership development and culture transformation into a single architecture of integration ensuring that skill-building emerges from alignment, not addition.
ACT
Taking small, aligned steps in how we show up as individuals, teams, and organizations is what creates real, sustainable change. When action aligns with intention, the incremental becomes transformational.
PAUSE
The practice of slowing down to create space for awareness and possibility to emerge. At every level (self, team, and organization), pausing interrupts reactivity and opens the door to what could be, not just what’s been.
CHOOSE
Consciously designing what comes next; shifting beliefs, emotional states, and behaviors across self, team, and organization. Alignment emerges when we intentionally create how we show up, connect, and work together, rather than repeating old patterns.
OBSERVE
Noticing the patterns at play in self, team, and organization, and what lies beneath them. It reveals the identity structures and conditioned responses driving action, turning awareness into insight and opening the space for conscious choice.
OBSERVE
Noticing the patterns at play in self, team, and organization, and what lies beneath them. It reveals the identity structures and conditioned responses driving action, turning awareness into insight and opening the space for conscious choice.
PAUSE
The practice of slowing down to create space for awareness and possibility to emerge. At every level (self, team, and organization), pausing interrupts reactivity and opens the door to what could be, not just what’s been.
CHOOSE
Consciously designing what comes next; shifting beliefs, emotional states, and behaviors across self, team, and organization. Alignment emerges when we intentionally create how we show up, connect, and work together, rather than repeating old patterns.
ACT
Taking small, aligned steps in how we show up as individuals, teams, and organizations is what creates real, sustainable change. When action aligns with intention, the incremental becomes transformational.
When leaders unlearn habits that no longer serve them,
they unlock more than personal growth;
THEY BECOME CATALYSTS FOR SYSTEMIC CHANGE
Research across 31 empirical studies confirms it:
Leaders who master intentional forgetting show improved performance and innovation.
Teams achieve breakthroughs when unlearning reshapes how they process information.
Organizations with strong unlearning capabilities report direct gains in agility and innovation.
Leaders who master intentional forgetting show improved performance and innovation.
Teams achieve breakthroughs when unlearning reshapes how they process information.
Organizations with strong unlearning capabilities report direct gains in agility and innovation.
With 74% of workers eager to acquire new skills and companies with comprehensive development programs generating 218% higher income per employee.
Kluge, A. (2023). Recent findings on organizational unlearning and intentional forgetting research (2019–2022). Frontiers in Psychology, 14.
The question isn’t whether to invest in unlearning; it’s whether you can afford not to.
Transformation starts with self before it shapes teams and organizations.
In a world where today’s best practices quickly become tomorrow’s limitations, unlearning is the foundation of lasting adaptability and competitive advantage.
From first meeting to our post-event debrief. She took time to get to know our organization’s story and our strategic vision to speak to our team members in a way that resonates with everyone. Her personal vulnerability and real-life, lived examples helped create trust with our organization right off the bat. I highly recommend working with Carolina!
Carolina has spoken at several of our conferences. We enjoy working with her and the audience always walks away with a great learning experience AND tangible takeaways
Carolina presented to our audience of senior and emerging leaders at our Women’s Leadership Conference and the response was overwhelmingly positive. Her keynote delivered a poignant experience that addressed important challenges that were relevant for our participants all while providing clear, actionable takeaways. Carolina took time to meet with our team to tailor her presentation to our needs and it was well received. We look forward to working with her again!