The conscious competence model describes four, or possibly five, different stages that we move through as we are learning a new skill.
Imagine that I’ve been tying my shoelaces all my life in a way that they keep coming undone. While I know how to tie a knot, it never stays tied more than a few hours before becoming undone again.
I am in the stage of unconscious incompetence. I’m not doing a good job of tying the shoelace but at this point I’m also not aware that there’s a better way. I probably assume that everyone else is retying their shoelaces multiple times a day.
I have a blind spot. I’m not even aware that there is a better way.
Someone notices me retying the laces several times through the day and mentions that there are better knots that won’t come undone like that. Now I’m aware that there’s a better way but I don’t know what that way is. I’m in the stage of conscious incompetence.
At this point, I could read a book or ask someone for help. I’m aware that there is a better way, even though I don’t yet have the skills to make that better way happen.
The next step is to learn the skill so perhaps I have someone show me a better knot and I practice it until I can do it reliably. I’m now at the stage of conscious competence. I’m able to perform the skill but it still requires my attention. If I get distracted, I’ll probably do it wrong.
Months pass and I get so good at tying this new knot that I don’t even have to think about it anymore. My fingers just tie the knot without any focus. Now I’m in the stage of unconscious competence.
It’s at this point that I personally find the model incomplete. The model stops here but I think there is a fifth stage. More specifically, what we call the fourth stage, should really be split into two.
If I continue to tie this knot unconsciously for the next year then at some point I’ll consciously forget how to do it. My fingers will still tie the knot reliably but if someone were to ask “How do you do that?”, I won’t know.
To find out how to do it, I’ll have to actually tie the knot while I’m watching myself do it. We’ve all had this experience at some point. “I don’t know how I do that. Let’s see…“
I feel that this should be considered a fifth stage, when we reintegrate the conscious and unconscious understandings so that we can effectively teach the skill. We could theoretically have taught the skill the first time we get to conscious competence, but we wouldn’t be able to do it as effectively as we can at this second stage.
Moving from unconscious incompetence to conscious incompetence is the hardest step as we have a blind spot; we don’t even know we have a problem. I tend to go to live events such as open spaces or conferences to find my blind spots. It’s in those casual conversations that someone will make a comment that makes me realize that there’s something I need to learn.
Moving from conscious incompetence to conscious competence is fairly straight forward. I take a class or I read a book or ask for help. When we know what we need to learn, it’s now just a matter of taking the steps.
Moving from conscious competence to the highest step of blended conscious / unconscious competence can be done directly if we seek to teach as we learn. It’s possible to completely bypass that step of consciously forgetting if we keep teaching that skill as we go.
An added benefit is that teaching a skill is a phenomenal way to make the new skills still faster. So not only will you skip a step on the model, but you’ll most likely develop a deeper understanding of the skill, faster.