If you’re going to get the best out of your people, you need to understand the four stages of learning.

Let’s get stuck in. The first stage of learning is unconscious incompetency. In other words, you do not know what you do not know. When I was 12 years old, I tried to drive a car for the first time (sorry, Mom). At that stage, I had no idea that I didn’t know how to drive. As I got into the car, put the keys in the ignition, and then tried to move the car forward, I then entered the second stage of learning, which is conscious incompetence. It was at that stage that the penny dropped. I then realized that I didn’t know how to drive. There were all these pedals and controls, and I didn’t really know what to do with them.

So, if you now fast forward a few years later, you get to the third stage of learning, which is conscious competence. This is where you are actively learning and putting lots of energy, focus, and time and effort into doing the thing that you need to do. Think about the first time you had lessons. Do you remember how hard it was to keep focused on the road and to change gear, and all of that stuff going on at the same time? It took a massive amount of effort and concentration. Sorry, Mom! It is so easy when you’re powering through this third stage of learning to give up because it’s hard. Our job as managers and leaders is to help somebody understand that they are in the third stage of learning and that they just need to power through and persevere.

So, the fourth stage of learning is when you are unconsciously competent. In other words, without having to think, without having to put all of your time and effort in, you’re able to do something pretty much on autopilot. Think about your ability to drive a car now and multitask (I hope police aren’t watching this video). Think about all of the things that we do. We’re driving, we’re talking to somebody, usually on our hands-free phone call, doing all of this stuff at once. And if you think back to when you were first learning to drive and you’re powering through the conscious competency phase, imagine somebody tries to give you a sandwich while you’re trying to focus. It would have been impossible.

The reason that I think it’s so important to understand that you go through these four stages of learning is that, as a leader, it’s really important that you recognize that just because you can do something really fast, just because you can do something to a higher level, it’s not realistic to expect someone who’s at their third stage of learning to do whatever you need them to do at the pace you can do it at and at the standard you can do it at. You have to meet people where they’re at. It’s not that you can do it better than anybody else; it’s that you are at the fourth stage of learning, and everybody else might be at the second stage or even the third stage. Make sure that you are sensitive to the fact that they are going through these various stages of learning. Sometimes people need to be helped to understand that they don’t know that they don’t know how to do something. Sometimes people just need that extra bit of patience in the third stage of learning. And when team members are at the fourth stage of learning, get out of the way, delegate effectively, and give them the autonomy to do what they know how to do.

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