The Four Stages of Learning

The Four Stages of Learning highlight how we at the start are often unconscious of our incompetence. The moment we recognize our incompetence and lack of knowledge, the urge to acquire the skills emerges. You now will have to consciously put in the effort to learn the skill, which often exerts time and effort and is accompanied by feelings like stress and anxiousness Eventually with time, the skill can be used without you consciously thinking through it; that means you have acquired an unconscious competence level.

Several tools that help you “know what you don't know” or recognize your blind spot can be mistakenly related to some elements of a Johari Window. Just for clarification, Johari Window addresses self-awareness, while the four stages of competence are mainly your guidance to the four levels of learning.

The four stages of learning

Below the image, we will cover in more brief detail the four stages of learning

1.  Unconsciously Incompetent

Before you undertake a complex activity, you slumber through an area of unconscious incompetence. You may linger at this stage for decades. Look at the amount of time it takes to discover the difference between well-run and poorly-run meetings. In this stupor, you “do not know what you do not know.” You lack both knowledge and skills and are unaware of your incapacity.

Often it is referred to as the stage of blissful ignorance. During this stage, you are unaware of your deficit of not knowing how to do a task or never realize the usefulness of this skill even if someone highlighted your incompetence previously. The key to this stage is that it is you who need to recognize your incompetence and understand ultimately the value of obtaining the skill before you move into the next stage. The time spent in this stage relevantly depends on your natural stimulus to learn.

2.   Conscious Incompetence

Yet another stage remains before you become competent. Here you develop increased consciousness. During this stage, you also develop aspirations and hopes. You begin to envision yourself as competent and contributory. You may linger in this state for a long time, depending on your determination to learn and the real extent to which you accept your incompetence. Most importantly, your consciousness enables you to observe and identify the characteristics of competency, typically in others, as you begin to “know what you don’t know.”

Despite your lack of knowledge of the skill and inability to perform during this stage, you now recognize the deficit and that is an indicator that you became conscious of the incompetence. You now realize the value of the new skill in addressing that deficit, and logically your making mistakes while trying to perform this skill is a normal thing and realistically you shouldn’t feel bad about your deficit.

Your confidence drops during this stage as you realize the limitation of your ability. This is usually accompanied by feeling uncomfortable as you begin to realize how much you don’t know. Should you decide to learn, practicing the skill takes a lot of concentration, and much learning starts occurring. Your commitment is the key factor to keep you going and moving into the next stage.

3.   Conscious Competence

Cast into the role of facilitator, you find yourself slipping into and out of competency. You can increase the consistency of your competency by taking formal training, practicing, participating with others who aspire to be better, and obtaining valuable feedback. Developing competence occurs much quicker than developing consciousness. Practice, training, and feedback help because they increase your consciousness. You “grow and know and it starts to show.”

During this stage, now you acquired the necessary knowledge and skills to complete the need to do something. However, demonstrating this skill or knowledge still requires concentration and some effort. You often break it down into steps and exert heavy consciousness and sometimes effort to execute this skill. Your confidence increases with your ability as you start grasping the concept and become capable of performing the new skill without assistance.

4.   Unconscious Competence

With repetitive practice and experience, you reach a point where you no longer need to think about what you are doing. You become competent without the significant effort that characterizes the state of conscious competence. You will drift in and out of unconscious competence, based on the skills you master quickly. It takes little time to become unconsciously competent, only practice. Here your services are requested “because of what you know.” Eventually, you know that it feels right and you do it.

Now, you have enough practice, and performing the skill has become "second nature", you now can perform it comfortably, effortlessly, and at a time without even thinking about it. Now you can perform the skill while executing other tasks as it becomes like a habit. you are now even may be able to teach this skill to others.

I always like to use an example during my facilitation which makes it quite easy to imagine the four levels more holistically. I would like you to refer to my diagram below and think of the skill of driving a vehicle or playing a musical instrument. How you were unconscious about the volume of your incompetence and move on imaging the steps till the day you can drive without even remembering the journey of giving it a thought and at times while competing and thinking of other things. Same when you master playing the guitar, you can play unconsciously while sitting in a company laughing, chatting, having a drink, and a smoke.