All organizations are looking to increase the competency of their employees and, hopefully, of themselves. Looking at this from the base level up, in a practical sense our competency evolves with experience, expertise, and possibly, time.

1. Unknowing

We begin by not knowing about a skill, issue, or subject. Think of newborn babies: They are not ignorant; they just don’t know.

2. Disturbed

Then something happens that causes us to feel disturbed enough about our knowledge, or lack thereof, of a subject. For instance, we might experience bad results, read an article, hear someone speak, or start a new job.

3. Intellectual

Intellectual competence occurs when we have read a book or been to a course. We know the subject matter on the surface and may have applied it in some fashion.

This is a dangerous phase where it is easy for us to say, “I know that, we do it already, there is nothing more for us to learn.” Think of a golfer who has read a book on golf and then declares he knows how to play, or a person who went to a one-day course four years ago and says she doesn’t need to do more training because she knows this stuff.

At this level we have choices: the choice to deepen our understanding of the subject by moving further up the competency progression, or the choice to say, “No thanks, that’s not for me.” Both answers are OK.

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