There are four stages of adult competence according to a study from New York University in the 1960s.
The first stage is unconscious incompetence. It’s when we arrive at a new workplace, it could be for your first job, or it could be starting somewhere new. You think that you know what you’re doing, you may even believe that you know a much better way of doing things, or so you imagine, than the current ways of working, but you do not. Sometimes this is pointed out to you by a kindly mentor or work buddy. Sometimes you find out the hard way by screwing up, as I did back in the 1980s when my then boss Christine, shouted at me because she thought I had made a mistake. (For the record I actually hadn’t made a mistake at all. However, I didn’t know how to explain that I hadn’t. I learnt then a valuable lesson that it isn’t good enough to be right, you need to know how to explain it).
The second stage is conscious incompetence. We are aware that we need to learn how to do something, but we are not sure exactly what it is or even sometimes how to learn it. It can feel really mysterious. Many women in the workplace have recounted their experience of being told that they cannot be promoted yet because despite their technical skills they “lack gravitas”. If you’ve ever been told this, you might remember that no-one is particularly clear about how you obtain it or even what exactly it is. It certainly does not come same day delivery on Amazon, or Ocado. It can feel very uncomfortable to be in this stage at work. You are doing what has been asked of you, and you are doing it well, but there is something missing, and you just don’t know what to do about it. A good mentor, or manager, or buddy will help you through the process, or you will figure it out eventually, but it is frustrating all the same.
The third stage is conscious competence. Now you have learnt some new skills, and perhaps these are the soft skills of how to get stuff done in your organisation, how to manage up and across and an understanding of the hidden rules of work. You might be required to negotiate the politics of a new merged mega corporation or find your way around a start up. But you are new to these skills, they might not come naturally to you in the way that technical ability does. Or conversely you have the softer skills nailed and you have learned new techniques in AI or the creator economy. You’re on top of the tools, information and ideas but you are not yet expert at using them.
And finally the fourth stage: unconscious competence. You have internalised the new skills and tools. They have become routine and you do everything without having to think about it every time. This final state, which not everyone is going to reach, shines out from people at the top of their game whatever that game is. Those people, be they actors, surgeons, athletes or advertising executives, have achieved this level of learning. And they make complicated and difficult things look deceptively, even annoyingly easy.
They have worked hard to reach this level. They have fought for it. It is not achievable simply from a training or coaching course (although they can help). It comes on the back of significant experience. If you want to see it in action, watch Francesca Lollobrigida winning her second gold medal in the women’s 5000 metres ice speed skating at the Winter Olympics. It is her fourth Olympics, and she was significantly older than her rivals, but also significantly more experienced. (For film buffs out there she is the great niece of the film icon Gina Lollabrigida.)
I think you can see this unconscious competence too if you watch Claudine Collins interview candidates on The Apprentice. She makes this look like a walk in the park. Which it is not. It takes confidence, skill but especially experience. She is now clearly standing out from her interviewing colleagues on the show for her warmth, intuitive understanding and also her ability to see through well practiced facades to the real humans being hiding beneath, a characteristic that I experienced while working with her for so many years.
It is not expertise or learning alone that shapes your impact at work. Experienced people are an asset to our business, even in a time of disruption and change, or, in fact, especially in a time of disruption and change.