That probably sounds like a funny question, but it’s a very important one to those of us on the NCMi faculty.  Many times our instructors have had managers show up for a class, some unwilling, who think they have been around the block enough times to be able to teach it themselves. However, low and behold, those same managers will leave the class with knowledge and understanding they didn’t realize they needed. The concept behind the question is that we all learn to master skills in predictable stages, and those stages are based upon how consciously aware we are of our need to learn the skills being taught.  As trainers (employers), we must understand how our students (employees) perceive their own abilities in those areas of instruction.  In short, we need to ask, “Do they know what they don’t know?” 

The “yes” or “no” answer to that question tells us whether a student is at Stage 1 or Stage 2 of what we refer to as the Competence Learning Model. In the management training courses we teach at the NCM Institute Center for Automotive Retail Excellence, our mission is to advance the attendees to Stage 3 in each of five core disciplines.  Likewise, your objective is to teach your employees the skills and processes they need to do their jobs well. 

Mastering Stage 3, “knowing what you need to know,” sometimes referred to as conscious competence, means that the student can now perform the new skill reliably and at will. The student will need to concentrate and think in order to perform the skill, but he should be able to perform the skill without assistance. Additionally, the person should be able to demonstrate the skill to another, but is unlikely to be able to teach it well to another person. Achieving Stage 3 does not signify expertise, but it is perfectly adequate for most of the required management skills within the retail automotive industry.

A person cannot move to Stage 3 until he “knows what he doesn’t know.”  Within the learning model, this is Stage 2 and we refer to it as conscious incompetence. Mastering this stage means that the student is aware of the existence and relevance of the skill we’re teaching. He is also aware of his deficiency in this area, and he knows that by improving his ability in this area, his management effectiveness will improve. Ideally this person makes a commitment to learn and practice this skill, thereby moving on to Stage 3. Most of the students who enroll in our NCMi classes begin at Stage 2, and are a true pleasure for the faculty to work with.

Where we as faculty members need to be really careful is not to assume that all of our trainees are at Stage 2, when often some of the trainees are still at Stage 1. This is the doesn’t-know-what-he-doesn’t-know stage, often referred to in the learning model as unconscious incompetence. In this stage, the trainee may not be aware of the existence or relevance of the skill area (or he might deny the usefulness of the skill), and he certainly is unaware that he has a particular deficiency in the area concerned. Most importantly, he simply doesn’t see the need for learning.

For example, the skill area might be managing the aging process in the used vehicle department, when the trainee does not even realize that used vehicle aging is a challenge that must be continually addressed. Before we can move this person to Stage 3, he must advance to Stage 2 by becoming conscious of his incompetence. Trainees will not be able to address achieving conscious competence until they’ve become consciously and fully aware of their own incompetence. (Wow, that was a mouthful!)

Our responsibility as faculty members is to move this person up one stage by demonstrating the skill and the benefit that it will bring to the person’s effectiveness. Not doing so will result in the failure of our teaching program.  Who are these Stage 1 students? Often they’re talented individuals with little or no experience in the retail automotive world. Sometimes they are dealership managers who were “instructed or strongly encouraged” to enroll, but don’t really want to be in the class. And, yes, sometimes we see the manager with the big ego who thinks he knows everything. Our biggest challenge as NCMi faculty members is to quickly identify the Stage 1 students in each class; sometimes it’s easy, and sometimes it’s not. We recognize that Stage 1 trainees who are not immediately identified (and addressed appropriately) may slow the class down and rob the Stage 2 attendees of educational opportunities. We can’t allow that to happen.

There are two additional stages within the Competence Learning Model, but those primarily involve industry gurus and trainers, so I’ll save them for another time.