China Finance ñ Best Career Choice?

By Frank Mulligan ñ Accetis International, Talent Software & Recruit China

A situation where you do not know what you do not know has to be the worst case scenario for anyone who has to get a result.

Itís hard enough to accept the fact that you donít know certain things, which we know will be true for all of us at some point in our life, but not to have any awareness of this shortcoming leaves you with a self-sustaning loop. A problem and no way to get out of it, with plausible deniability as your only compensation.

At least weíre happy, even if no one around us is.

The first step to getting out of this loop is to acknowledge the incompetence. This sets the stage for learning and it redefines the person as consciously incompetent. This is the second of four states that trainees go through as they try to achieve mastery of their subject matter.

The theory is called the Conscious-Competence Model and according to the model there are four stages that have to be gone through one by one. No one can skip any stage, and at each stage it is possible to test trainees for competence, so the model is both elegant and practical.

The stages look like this:

Unconscious incompetence occurs when the person in question, letís call him Bob, is simply not aware of the existence or relevance of the skill that he needs. If Bob were a Recruiter it might mean that he knows nothing about Linkedin, or social networking generally, and fails to see the relevance that this might have to his daily work. The concept is so new it just goes straight over Bobís head.

A second possibility is that Bob is aware of social networking. He has joined various networks but has not taken advantage of the recruiting tools they offer him. This is very common in China where you see many HR staff with a minimal level of detail in their profile, and less than 10 connections. In this second scenario Bob has awareness of the overall issue of social networking but has a deficient in the area that is most important: actually getting recruiting advantage from it.

Getting to the next stage, of conscious incompetence, is difficult because you have to take on Bobís entire personality to get the change you desire. Understanding something new challenges Bobís sense of himself as a competent HR professional, and the fact that the trainer is often younger than him is hard to accept. However, in my experience, once the new issue is out on the table there is no going back. Listening is often less work than making efforts to avoid something.

However, if Bob is a little older he may well see the new skill as relevant to a younger generation. He will listen, but may only take enough action to get the trainer off his back. Apparently, most people over the age of 60 get their news from CNN and the BBC, but most under 40 get their news via the internet. If Bob is over 60 he may see the internet as a young personís issue.

Conscious incompetence is obviously what happens when Bob is introduced to a new skill. Now he is conscious of the fact that there is something new that could help him in his work. He wants to acquire this new skill and will make best efforts at learning it.

If Bob were a HR Administrator it could be a lack of knowledge and skills in the use of a Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS) that is holding him back. In an ideal world he would see the value of using such a system and would welcome the chance to train on it. The learning curve will cause Bob some difficulty but the increase in his skills base, and the value to his future career, should be clear and unambiguous.

However, after many years working with IT systems I would suggest that this stage can last a long time. Systems can be installed, and new processes adopted, but success is contingent on management and staff commitment to the new idea. Weak commitment leads to weak implementation, and the parallel use of EXCEL spreadsheets and international Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) testifies to the resistance that is common at this stage of the learning process.

Conscious competence happens when Bob can perform the new skill whenever he needs to. It is now a routine day-to-day issue, and he no longer needs the trainerís assistance to complete individual tasks. At this stage the tasks still need focus and concentration, and Bob still needs a lot more time and effort to get to the stage where he doesnít even have to think about the task.

If the training process were well thought through Bob would have been chosen as the first trainee because he has a particular aptitude for this kind of thing. Once he is up to speed he can be used in a Train the Trainer model, and the other offices can receive the benefit of his new knowledge. Strangely enough the people at the next stage, that of unconscious competence, often donít make good trainers because often they canít describe their work in sufficient detail to teach others. They just do it.

Unconscious competence is the last stage in the process, and is only achieved by a small minority of people. Unconscious competents are the people described in Malcolm Gladwellís book, ìThe Power of Thinking Without Thinkingî.

People at this level have trained themselves to do their job without the necessity to apply their full concentration. They achieve this they will have put in literally hundreds of hours of practice, a notion that often misunderstood by people who just look at the title of Gladwellís book.

Setters are an excellent example of this. These are the people who ísetí machines in a factory ie. they choose the parameters on the dials and switches. Normally they are not degree qualified but they are absolutely critical to the production of many products. They often start in factories in some mechanically-related position and show aptitude for operating machines.

After many years on some machine, such as the one that produce machined parts like bearings, they will be able to ísetí the machine with a quick look and a twist of the wrist. Ask them how they do it and they will look at you blankly, as if anyone could do it.

There is no magic in achieving unconscious competence. No shortcuts. Thomas Edison put it very with his oft quoted, ìGenius is 1% inspiration, and 99% perspiration.î

Thankfully for the majority of us, so too is competence.

Email frank.mulligan@recruit-china.com
Frank Mulliganís blog ñ english.talent-software.com