This week we will look at the various stages that organization experiences during performance improvement initiatives. I will show you what you can expect; what does it mean; and how to deal with what you are experiencing.
Using the very famous "Stages of Competence" i.e. the Competence Model as comparison, I will demonstrate exactly what happens from inception to implementation.
The origin of the Competence Model rises from the field of psychology and deals with how people learn and progress. According to the model there are four stages, and they are:
1. Unconscious Incompetence
2. Conscious Incompetence
3. Conscious Competence
4. Unconscious Competence
Let us now examine each stage as it relates to implementing performance improvement and organizational optimization.
1. Unconscious Incompetence
You are at the beginning of the process improvement initiative. At this stage the stakeholders are in the dark and don't know if there is anything wrong with the process. Therefore, at this early stage of implementation, time will need to spent on mapping the existing processes and gathering knowledge via interviewing stakeholders involved.
2. Conscious Incompetence
Once the present state of the process has been captured, awareness has been established. This means that at this stage of performance improvement initiative, the stakeholders are now aware that the process could be improved. However, the root cause has not been discovered. In other words, the stakeholders are not sure what is wrong. Therefore, at this stage of the implementation time will need to be spent on dissecting the process to its simplest form. This exercise will also yield in the identification of the key performance indicators of the process.
3. Conscious Incompetence
At the third of the performance improvement implementation the root cause has been identified and isolated; a solution has been created that will result in a "measurable" improvement of the process. In this stage of the implementation, the new process will be implemented as well. However, the process (at the stage) is very new and needs to be learned and adopted by the stakeholders. Therefore, a process acclamation period is established. Training and awareness efforts are conducted as well.
4. Unconscious Competence
This is the final stage within the performance improvement implementation effort. At this stage, the stakeholders are very familiar with the improved process. The improved the process is now reached first level of maturity. This means that the process is now a part of the work flow. It has been adopted by the stakeholders and is considered part of the operations of the company.
In summation, we can see from the various stages that take place during performance improvements initiatives that it is important to understand what happens, when does it happen, what to expect, and how to deal with it. Each stage has its unique challenges. Having this knowledge has helped many people navigate their way through the difficult waters of process improvement implementation initiatives within organizations.
Question:
After reading the blog, do you agree with the analysis here? Have you experienced the same stages of competence in your organization?
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Thank you.
Salman Khan (Sal)
1 comment:
Hello there,
Just visited this blog because I met Salman digitally through the LinkedIn Q&A pages.
The process of competence development as described here interests me greatly, because I use this model all the time during trainings to explain people about their personal development. Never before though I applied it to organisational development. This opens new perspectives for me, I suppose you can indeed apply this to organisations too, especially if you consider organisations to be like organisms.
When I use the model I normally illustrate it with an eyeopener exercise by asking participants to cross their arms in front of them as they usually would. They are now at the stage of unconscious incompetence, because when I ask them to cross their arms again, but now the other way around, they become aware of the fact that it is difficult and uncomfortable; they've now entered the conscious incompetence stage. By trying carefully it becomes easier but still not automatic; conscious competence stage. At that point I always explain them that any new behaviour will become of unconscious competence if only you persist in doing it again and again.
The explanation is important to motivate people to persist in doing things the new way, even though it feels uncomfortable at first. I assume the same would apply for an organisation, and as a consultant I could use that.
Thanks for the new angle!
Kind regards,
Tessa
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