4 Stages of Competence to Learn a New Skill

It is something I will never forget and I remember it like it was yesterday. I was 10 years old at the time and I came home from school and my nanny said she had something to show me. She brought me over to my 3-year-old sister and said, “watch this”.  All of a sudden, the little nugget who was still pooping in her diapers put on her shoes and tied them. I couldn’t believe it! I didn’t think she knew what shoes were let alone know how to tie them! Ok, I am exaggerating about her not knowing what shoes were, but she certainly was borderline in terms of knowing what tying your shoes even meant! Talk about moving through the 4 stages of competence in record time! Holy moly!

Sadly, her newfound skill would cause some friction between myself and the little devil not long after.

More on that in a bit!

In order to improve at anything…

…you first need to understand where you currently are. This is true both if you are trying to learn to do something yourself or if you are managing or mentoring someone else who is trying to learn a new skill.  One tactic that you can use is a paradigm of performance which is called the 4 stages of competence (also known as the 4 stages of learning).

The 4 Stages of Competence

This simple model simply states that each individual must pass through four different stages when learning a new skill.  The model can be applied to everything from learning to play the violin, to learning how to public speak to…learning how to tie your shoes.

Let’s briefly discuss each of the 4 stages of competence in turn before we move on to some examples.

Unconscious incompetence

The first of the 4 stages of competence is called unconscious incompetence. This is the stage where you suck at something, but you have no idea you suck at it. In other words, you don’t know what you don’t know.

For example, we have all seen people on talent shows such as American Idol who are really bad, but they think they are good.

Here is an example of a contestant from American Idol named Jennifer. Even though the judges were unanimous in their disapproval of her singing, she was still unconsciously incompetent – she had no idea she sucked:

Conscious incompetence

The next stage is called conscious incompetence. This is the stage where you suck at something and you know it. In other words, you know what you don’t know.

For example, another contest from American Idol named William Hung took the criticism of the judges much better. He even admitted “I have no professional training in singing”, to which one of the judges sarcastically replied, “no!”.

Conscious competence

Next, we have the conscious competence stage.  This is the stage where you have gained some competence in whatever it is you are trying to learn how to do. In this stage, however, you may still need to think about it as you do it. In other words, you know how to do it, but you still need to think your way through it.

Let’s stay with our singing example, you are probably getting better after much practice. However, you still need to think about controlling your diaphragm muscle as you sing, as an example.

Unconscious competence

The last of the 4 stages of competence is called the unconscious competence stage. This is the stage where you are at such a level of mastery that you don’t even need to think about how to do it. In other words, you know how to do it without even thinking about it.

Concluding our example, at this point you are so good that you can sign well without consciously thinking about it.

How about another quick example that most of us are familiar with, which is…

Learning How to Ride a Bike

I remember my Prime Your Pump co-blogger Howie telling me a story about how he taught his daughter how to ride her bike. She began in the conscious incompetence stage, she knew she couldn’t ride her bike but was really determined to learn.

Howie then taught her ‘the theory of bike riding’ to balance the bike that she would repeat as she was riding down the street. “Falling to the left, turn to the left, falling to the right, turn to the right” This would help her regain her center of gravity (balance).

After a few hours of practice, she finally was able to move into the conscious competence stage.

Then I am sure there came a time when she no longer had to think about it and tell herself what to do. Which meant she had moved on to the unconscious competence phase and no longer had to think about it.

Things to Keep in Mind – Use it or Lose It

The first step in improving a skill or helping someone else learn a skill is to understand where you or they are in the 4 stages of competence, then to move on through the stages.

Unconscious incompetence:

This is where we or others need to come to terms that we don’t know how to do something. We need to understand that we can’t know how to do everything and that everyone starts somewhere.

For you: A good way to move out of stage 1 is to get someone who is unbiased to assess your skills.

If you are helping someone else: If you are managing or helping someone else, you may want to do an assessment of their skills. You will want to make them aware of what and why they need to learn. It is important to be positive and encouraging at this stage.

Conscious incompetence:

For you: We are aware we lack a certain skill at this stage. Now we need to decide if we are willing to put in the time and effort to learn and improve whatever skill we need to learn. Understand it may take time, don’t get discouraged. Stay positive.

If you are helping someone else: Let them know we all start somewhere. Be positive and encouraging.

 Conscious competence:

We have some competence, but we are still at a stage that we need to think about how to do it.

Depending on the person and the skill, this may be the final stage as the marginal reward is less than the effort put in. In other words, we could spend more time learning to do the skill better to get to the next level, but the payoff isn’t worth the time.

For you: Keep practicing and looking for opportunities to get better so you don’t lose the skill.

If you are helping someone else: Identify or help them identify opportunities for them to practice the skill.

Unconscious competence:

Here you are doing the skills without thinking.

For you: Again, you must still keep practicing the skills, so you don’t lose them. You may also want to, depending on the skill, teach the skill, as that is the best way to really cement it in your mind.

If you are helping someone else: Don’t let people get complacent, remind them how hard it was to get to this level.

Back to My Sister

As I said, she moved through the 4 stages of competence really quickly. One day she didn’t know what it meant to tie her shoes and not long after she was consciously competent at it. She still needed to think it through and it took a bit of time, but she could do it. The key was that our nanny showed her how and then practiced with her every day over and over until she got it. And most importantly, she was positive and encouraging all the while.

 Ah right, the friction it caused between us!

Not long after she learned her new skill, I was sitting at a picnic table outside. As I got up, I lost my balance and fell on my butt!

Turns out the little devil toddler was not just adept at tying her own shoes.  Without me knowing, she crawled under the picnic table and tied my shoes together!

Before you feel bad for me, don’t! I had it coming as I had locked her in the cage with our new puppy a couple months before.

Kids!

I had to give the devil her due!

Until next time, keep using the 4 stages of competence, watch out for evil toddlers and as always…PYMFP!
–Rick

When to Use It

When you are trying to learn a new skill or when you are helping someone else learn a new skill.

What Do You Think?

Have you ever used the 4 stages of competence to learn a new skill or help someone else learn a new skill? Please share in the comments below!

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