Four Stages of Competence and the Learning Process

Competence refers to a person’s ability to proficiently perform their job and execute tasks in an adequate amount of time. A competent worker produces high-quality output without needing constant supervision or corrections by other team members. Their coworkers trust them to accomplish tasks on time and meet company standards for quality.

You can develop competence through a combination of innate knowledge and a conscious effort to acquire new skills and knowledge. This requires self-awareness of your present strengths as well as acknowledgment of your own incompetence in particular disciplines. Through independent practice or employee training, you can address deficiencies and amass competence in new disciplines.

Businesses engage in competence training to improve employee abilities and close knowledge gaps. In 1969, management trainer Martin M. Broadwell mapped out the “four levels of teaching” via a conscious competence model. In subsequent years, Noel Burch of Gordon Training International adapted the model, calling it the "four stages for learning any new skill.” Social scientist Abraham Maslow similarly broke personal development into stages when describing what has become Maslow‘s hierarchy of needs, although he did not specifically focus on business competence.

Using the work of Broadwell and Burch, modern management trainers have devised four stages of learning linked to different psychological states.

1. 1. Unconscious incompetence stage: In stage one of an employee’s competence arc, the employee does not know how to perform certain tasks and lacks awareness of their deficiencies. To move to the next stage, the employee must acknowledge their own incompetence and understand the value of the needed skill.
2. 2. Conscious incompetence stage: In stage two of the process, the employee has knowledge of their own incompetence and will see the value in acquiring new skills to address their deficiencies. However, they do not yet possess the knowledge or abilities to address their competence gap. To progress from this second stage, employees must have a desire to improve and the resources to gain new competence.
3. 3. Conscious competence stage: In the conscious competence phase, the employee actively learns new skills and amasses new knowledge. They are gaining confidence and abilities—and their deliverables show noted improvement—but task management still takes concentration and effort. Top performance has not yet become second nature.
4. 4. Unconscious competence stage: In this final stage of Burch‘s competency framework, a worker has amassed enough confidence that the work becomes second nature. The employee can produce high-quality output without painstaking effort and thrive in their job for a sustained time.

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