The Power Of Knowing What You Don’t Know: A Guide To Mastery

Knowing what you don't know is one of the most powerful ways to navigate your learning.

getty

It's been a long time since I was called an idiot, an amateur, and a clown - all within a few days. But that's exactly what happened recently as I provided feedback to two adult learners who had taken a computer-based, adaptive learning course in which I am a subject matter expert.

Initially, both learners dug in their heels - essentially insisting that the course was wrong and that they were right. After several rounds of back and forth, one learner finally acknowledged that there were many things he still needed to learn and gaps he needed to clarify and close.

The second learner, however, became more defensive and even combative. "What you're suggesting is ludicrous - even dangerous!" he yelled at me.

I knew exactly what was happening. With its real-time evaluations - what we in education call "formative" assessments - this course was meant to uncover misperceptions and offer support to deepen the learning experience. For the second learner, however, it had triggered a case of what I would call "educational PTSD." The second learner was so afraid of failing, he refused to even consider the possibility that he was wrong.

In other words, here was a severe case of unconscious incompetence.

When someone is unconsciously incompetent, they believe they know something or know how to do something when, in fact, they do not. It's a pervasive problem, as our firm's research has found, affecting 20 to 40 percent of areas critical to performance in someone's job. Unconscious incompetence can cause everything from errors and quality issues to production bottlenecks and dissatisfied customers; but most importantly, it is the most critical obstacle to learning anything!

When people languish in unconscious incompetence, they are afraid to admit their misperceptions and mistakes. A common reaction is to shift the blame elsewhere: the course is wrong, the test is unfair, the instructors don't know what they're talking about. As researchers have found, it takes " intellectual humility " to own one's mistakes, as well as gaps in one's knowledge, skills, and understanding.

With the first learner, it took several conversations - with assurances that "this is not a test!" - to bring him around. That's when it felt emotionally and psychologically safe for him to admit to what he did not know or had previously misunderstood.

When he finally let his guard down, what he had feared as failure became a compass, pointing him toward what he needed to learn next.

As for the second learner, unfortunately I am still in doubt about him. When a group of us - his teacher, another international subject matter expert, and I - met with him on videoconference, he persisted with several of his objections. These objections that were patently unwarranted. He had just made up his mind that he was right and would consider no other possibility.

Becoming Consciously Incompetent

What's instructive for us here is to return our attention back to the first learner. By admitting gaps in his knowledge, he crossed an important threshold. He became consciously incompetent -and that put him squarely in the learning zone.

This is a crucial phase for learners at every level. People who are consciously incompetent are highly motivated to learn. The reason is simple: they know what they don't know-and they want to do something about it. In this stage, learners are highly receptive to new knowledge and skills, as well as opportunities to apply what they are learning.

Along the way, learners move through another stage: conscious competence . They have acquired the necessary knowledge but are not fully confident in it. As a result, they think carefully as they apply their new knowledge and skills.

The four stages of deliberate practice

Illustration created with Gemini by Google

Eventually, people's knowledge and skills can become so ingrained as to be second nature. They can perform certain tasks without even thinking and rely on knowledge that is right at their fingertips. At this point, learners reach the pinnacle known as automaticity. (The easiest example of automaticity is the person who does not need to think about the position of the keys on the keyboard; they simply begin typing.)

Automaticity is not required for every skill or task a person performs in their job or vocation. However, when people become very competent to the point of automaticity in certain areas, their performance is elevated - and they have the momentum and motivation to keep learning.

What It Takes to Learn

No one - no matter how experienced or how highly educated - can know everything. Even in someone's field of practice, research continuously reveals better insights and deeper understanding. To become lifelong learners, we need to follow our curiosity into the new and different. Lifelong learning not only increases our knowledge; it also builds our character.

There are two key concepts-grit and deliberate practice.

• Getting "grittier" by prioritizing your learning. Researcher and bestselling author Angela Duckworth has shown the world the importance of "grit," which she defines as the product of passion and perseverance in pursuit of long-term goals. Importantly, grit is not just determination or the ability to keep going, no matter what. Grit is powered by passion, a love of what you're learning and doing. Another important aspect of grit is that it is not a solitary endeavor. The grittier your attitude, the more willingly you'll access input from others and, as we'll see next, improve the way you practice and apply your knowledge.
• Embracing deliberate practice. Deliberate practice was a breakthrough concept developed by the late K. Anders Ericsson , a Swedish psychologist and researcher, who was my trusted advisor and beloved friend for many years. Anders believed that deliberate practice held the secret of improving one's skills, even to the point of achieving mastery. Deliberate practice can also accelerate learning in the workplace. Instead of, say, making presentations or doing client pitches the same way each time (and getting mixed results), a person gets feedback on what and where they can improve. A deliberate practice approach can be uncomfortable at first; after all, most people want to focus on their strengths, not their weaknesses. However, deliberate practice can lead people to achieve higher levels of performance than they had thought possible.

Grit and deliberate practice, however, cannot exist in a vacuum. It takes self-awareness and the willingness to admit what we do not know.

That brings us back to the learner who reluctantly acknowledged the gaps in his understanding. He has since stepped up his learning and seized every opportunity to apply his new knowledge. And all because he learned to look at correction and redirection not as failure, but rather as the gateway to becoming conscious and, ultimately, competent.

By Ulrik Juul Christensen, Contributor