The Space Between
Recently I spent time with my brother Kelly and his wife when my husband was out of town in our current home. There were two separate events in which I passed along my husband’s instructions for operating something to Kelly.
One was for starting the fireplace. I had been instructed to place the lighter under the second rung from the right. Kelly saw me struggle with this, and he quickly stepped in. “You have to tilt the lighter up,” he quickly clarified as he started the fire. Ah! That helped immensely.
The other was for plugging in our golf cart to charge the batteries. Again, I had been instructed to just plug it in. Period. Kelly again saw me struggling and as he successfully plugged it in, he noted, “You have to tilt it down.” Again, the light bulb came on for me.
I thought it was interesting to note how Kelly quickly identified the issues for me. I parked that interest for another time.
A few days later I asked my husband for help in removing the slider from the top of my camelbak water bladder. I had struggled to get it on despite being able to do it earlier, and now we were both struggling to get it off. Once he solved that particular problem for me, he pointed out how he saw it working properly with the two edges inside the slider. I gave it another go and still, I struggled. Then he noticed the top fold was not aligned. Ah!! That was the missing link for me.
Then it hit me. My husband is spatially oriented and is incredibly good at making things work. I am not. When he gives instructions, he unconsciously makes assumptions that I know what he knows. For example, the gas igniter in the fireplace is on top of the second rung of the grate so, of course, that is where you place the lighter.
We all have blind spots and we just uncovered one of his.
Now, he might think I was stupid in that particular moment, and I might accuse him of being a bad teacher — but neither is true. We are just at different stages of the learning process.
Let’s take a closer look at Dr. Phil Parker’s summary of the four stages of learning, as understood and described by Noel Burch and William Howell:
“FOUR STAGES OF LEARNING
1. Unconscious incompetence
This is the first step of learning and occurs when we don’t even recognize that we are not good at this skill; possibly we don’t even value it or know it exists. Deciding to become good at this skill involves moving into the next phase.
2. Conscious incompetence
Here we recognize the deficit in our skill set and start to work to become proficient; we’re just beginning, so we’re not great at it yet. Further practice moves us to the next phase.
3. Conscious competence
This is where we are now mastering the skill but still have to be very consciously aware of exactly what we’re doing while doing it and stay focused so that we perform effectively.
4. Unconscious competence
Once we become very proficient at something, and our geniuses are good examples of this, we reach this final level.”
If I apply this to our experiences noted above, it becomes clear that I was either unconsciously or consciously incompetent and he was unconsciously competent. With the right help, I now consider myself consciously competent – and better able to help others learn.
Dr. Phil Parker described someone who is unconsciously competent as being able to “consistently reproduce great results on demand unconsciously and automatically” – aka a genius.
When we are a genius at something, however, there is at least one downside as pointed out by Phil.
“The downside to this is that we don’t need to consciously remember the steps to perform that task any more; we forget they exist, and soon can’t recall them. This is unfortunate, because knowing the steps is absolutely essential if you want to teach anybody how to do it.”
That reminded me of my calculus teaching assistant (TA) in university. I needed a lot of help in this class. I remember watching him write out the equations, explaining how “X” turns into “Z”. I quickly asked where “Y” was since there was clearly a missing step. I remember him staring at me with frustration while he repeated the flawed steps — as if repetition was the cure, and I was clearly the stupid one. He couldn’t see why I couldn’t see what he could see. I could see this TA was not the TA for me – I saw him as an incompetent teacher. I quickly turned to help from a 17 year old math genius named Kesten. He accepted my homemade chocolate chip cookies as payment. I passed that course in the end with a C which felt like flying colors to me. I see now that that TA must have been a genius at calculus, and I was simply consciously incompetent until Kesten helped me be consciously competent.
When I think about all of this, a few things stand out for me.
First of all, the word “incompetence” carries a lot of baggage for me. I don’t like to be called incompetent—even if I don’t know how to do something. I also don’t want to be called stupid or slow. I am assuming you feel the same way. We are just at different learning stages.
Secondly, if I need to learn to do something, I have the ability to imagine possibilities by observing and reflecting on experiences. That means I learn by stepping back to observe and reflect on my experiences and feelings. Or at least that is what my Kolb learning style inventory report told me. That sounds about right to me. But what about you? We need to stay curious about how we best learn and stand up for ourselves in the process.
Lastly, the next time I think someone is stupid or slow or just incompetent, I will stop and consider the following:
a) Do they actually need to know this?
b) If they need to know, then what is the reason or value for this new learning?
c) Do I understand how they best learn?
d) Have I ensured all of the steps and definitions are clear in the process as laid out by someone with conscious competence?
e) By the end of this learning, are they now consciously competent?
That fills the space between competence and incompetence. That’s the least we can do, don’t you think?
Resources
Parker, Phil. Get the Life You Love, Now: How to Use the Lightning Process® Toolkit for Happiness and Fulfilment (pp. 21-22, 25-26). Kindle Edition.
Howell, William S. 1982. The Empathic Communicator (pp.29–33). Wadsworth Publishing Company. (Referenced in Phil Parker’s book noted above.)
Burch, Noel. 1970. Creator of the stages of competence model. (Referenced in Phil Parker’s book noted above.)
Kolb, D. 1984. Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. (I have not read this book — I have taken the Kolb learning inventory referenced in this resource.)
