subject: Cash In On The Acquisition Of Knowledge And Skills [print this page] An accepted model for learning in the training world is the 4 step move from 'Unconscious Incompetence' passing through 'Conscious Incompetence' and 'Conscious Competence', ending at 'Unconscious Competence'. Usually this model is expressed as a progression upwards through the levels, like up a flight of steps. However in working as a trainer, in fact in any honest field of endeavour, I would suggest, if progress is indeed like a flight of steps it is at very least a spiral staircase.
Allow me to explain!
A regular anaology is a young man or woman who is learning to drive. Initially they are 'unconsciously incompetent' where it comes to driving. They have been driven around since early childhood. They have sat in a car with their mother or father and driving seems not much more complicated than pointing the car in the right direction, working a brake and occasionally using a steering wheel to turn. With regard to driving they are now aware of just how difficuly driving is. When they begin to learn, they shift to 'conscious incompetence'. Driving is in fact a lot harder than it seemed from the outside. With a bit of practice the learner will progress to 'conscious competence'. That is, they begin to drive effectively, if they concentrate really carefully and no one talks to them while they are thinking. And then a few years later they are reversing out of the garage, using only one hand, programming the radio with the other and holding a conversation at the same time. Do not accept this as a safe method of driving, but it recognizes that your familiarity with driving is now so well ingrained, it means you are now 'unconsciously competent' as a driver.
And that is where the traditional model usually ends. However to follow the driving analogy one step further, we are probably all aware of long-standing drivers, who cut corners, no longer indicate properly, cease to use their mirrors and hold the car on a hill with the footbrake alone. The Incompetence to Competence learning model is in fact not a straight upward path; at worst it is a circle, at best a spiral, because once one is unconsciously competent, like a sportsman who no longer trains properly or a musician who ceases to take lessons, it is possible to unconsciously slip back into a form of incompetence.
The solution? The Workshop leader's best friend. Feedback!
As a communicator, it is feedback that stops us from tumbling from unconscious competence back into unconscious incompetence. Most training and workshop feedback forms consist of a rather bland series of general questions whose answers amount to little more than 'Yes, I had a nice day'. Feedback should be challenging. It should make both the trainer and the participant think. No one likes to feel they are being criticised. And one of the unfortunate apparent rules is that often the most useful feedback is not expressed very tactfully. As a trainer you need to embrace feedback. If you do a good job and remain consciously competent, then most of the feedback will be more than acceptable, and the occasional sharp comment will help keep you at the top of your game.
Feedback must not be just an end of session event. The best type of trainer is continually monitoring the class; body language, actively listening, continually asking questions about pace and content to make sure everybody is still on board. There is not much point in completing the day's training if half the participants go 'missing in action'.
So for the genuine communicator, like the serious artist, the learning process is not a straight linear path; instead it is a continuous cycle. It is about staying humble and using feedback to make sure professional competence never slips into professional incompetence.
Copyright (c) 2009 The College Of Public Speaking
by: Vincent Stevenson
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