You have likely heard " We don't know what we don't know." The bigger problem is that “we don't know that we don't know.”
It is kind of crazy to realize that, as human beings, we go through life thinking we are right 100% of the time.
It is kind of crazy to realize that, as human beings, we go through life thinking we are right 100% of the time. (Of course we do. We wouldn't continue down the path if we knew it to be wrong.) But is anything ever 100%? No, so we quite often realize that we were wrong. (Some might argue we don't have this realization often enough.) When we do, sometimes we change.
Because we so rarely realize when we are wrong, we are floating about in a state of unconscious incompetence. The first stage of correcting this is to move to a state of conscious incompetence in which we realize something must change. Without conscious incompetence, we don't even realize when we are wrong. But what good does that do us?
A more important goal is to move to conscious competence. Here we not only realize we have a problem, we take steps to fix it. We move from unconsciousness to consciousness; from incompetence to competence.
(Truth be told, there is a top level in the hierarchy in which we are intuitively competent, and we are not consciously aware of being so. We will save that for another blog post.)
Why does this matter? This is the payoff for reading this blog post: nothing ever changes if nothing ever changes. We can move from the bottom of the hierarchy (unconscious incompetence) to the next step (conscious incompetence) by reading a book or hiring a coach or phoning a friend. But if we stop there we are still incompetent. The power lies in moving from the second to the third level--not to the second from the first.
You realize you must change something to make it better. But until you actually change something, it won't get better. And this is why nothing changes if nothing changes. Just being aware of the problem is not enough.
We all know that we should exercise more and go to bed earlier and find time for social connection. But just knowing that is not enough. We must change in order to change things. We did not always know smoking was bad for you. Then we did. But knowing alone (moving up one step in the hierarchy) did not make us healthier. We had to quit smoking for that.
We all wallow in unconscious incompetence until somehow we realize that we must change in order to fix this. And while that is necessary, it is not sufficient. We must do the changing.
The leaders we work with often come to these epiphanies. Because they write, because they work, because they focus on the important a problem suddenly becomes so obvious. In almost every sacred hour we move from the first level to the second. Then starts the real work that lasts far beyond that discussion. Change.
Do you know something that must change in your life/organization? Congratulations. You've made it to the second level. What will it take to get to the third? Conscious incompetence is little better than unconscious incompetence. What will it take to move you/your organization to competence on this issue?
Being aware of it is not enough. We must change.
Think of one thing in your life/organization that must change.
What is the first step you can take to change it?
You are done reading now. Go take that step.
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