How do you get better at something?
And how do you help someone else get better at something?
Whether working on yourself or helping your team grow, there’s a path to developing new skills, and there’s no shortcuts on the path.
The 4 stages of skill development, better known as the 4 stages of competence, are:
Unconscious incompetence, aka ignorance.
Conscious incompetence, aka awareness.
Conscious competence, aka learning.
Unconscious competence, aka mastery.
What matters most is how to move from one stage to the next. That’s literal growth, visualized.
Unconscious incompetence (ignorance) —> conscious incompetence (awareness).
I use the term candor an egregious amount, but when you’re in my line of work you’re reminded every day how central it is to improving our lives and our leadership.
The only path out of unconscious incompetence is candor. Full stop.
If someone on your team (or your significant other, or a friend…) is falling short in a specific area, the only way they become aware of it is by someone else bringing it to their attention. That’s candor. It’s the person willing to tell someone they have pepper in their teeth. Or that they come off as an asshole in meetings.
Conscious incompetence (awareness) —> conscious competence (learning).
To move from awareness to learning, two things have to happen. First, you have to own it. You have to admit there’s an area that you want to improve in, and that there’s value in improving. Second, you have to put a plan in place to address it. Use the CORE process to get specific:
Call it: define the skill or gap as it is
Own it: own up to where you’ve fallen short and why it matters
Respond to it: what are you going to do to close the gap
Execute: be specific and put a plan and deadlines in place
Moving from awareness to learning requires effort. And effort requires a plan, otherwise it gets squeezed out by the things we already have competence in.
Conscious competence (learning) —> unconscious competence (mastery).
Practice. That’s it. Spending time doing the new thing is the only way to get better at the new thing. It requires a lot of effort up front to get better at something. But the more you do it, the less effort it requires.
The natural path then is getting to a place where the thing becomes effortless. That’s unconscious competence.
Speaking in front of a group of people is a daunting skill to someone who has never done it. But do it enough times and it becomes as effortless as talking to a friend. The same goes for Excel. And SQL. And CSS. And writing. And moving a barbell. And speaking up for yourself. And saying no to things.
And telling your friend they have pepper in their teeth.
Want to become a leader worth following?
Altitude Training: for new and emerging leaders who want to level up
100X Leader Intensive: for experienced leaders who want to multiply their impact
✌️ and ❤️,
Adam Griffin