6.4 Competence, Learning and the Learning Dip
Key Takeaways
- The conscious competence ladder runs unconscious incompetence, conscious incompetence, conscious competence, unconscious competence
- Conscious competence is the stage where a person has learnt to deliberately do something in a new way but still has to think about it
- The learning dip is the fall in performance while new skills are acquired, before competence is reached
- The extent of the dip and the speed of recovery depend on the timeliness and effectiveness of training provision
- Change managers should identify subject matter experts, L&D specialists, whether skills are new or developments of existing ones, the learning load, and early adopters who can support later learners
Change requires people to acquire knowledge, skills and attitudes they do not currently have. CM3 addresses the learning cycle people experience during change and the effect the learning dip can have on the embedding of change.
The conscious competence ladder
Learning a new skill passes through four stages. The exam tests these by describing a state and asking which stage it is.
| Stage | What it feels like | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Unconscious incompetence | You do not know what you do not know; you may not accept the skill is needed | A manager who has never used the reporting tool and does not see why it matters |
| Conscious incompetence | You now know you cannot do it, and it is uncomfortable | The same manager after their first attempt at building a report |
| Conscious competence | You have learnt to deliberately do something in a new way, but it takes concentration | Building the report correctly by carefully following the steps |
| Unconscious competence | The skill is automatic and requires no conscious thought | Building the report without thinking about it, and able to teach others |
Two points repay attention. First, conscious incompetence is progress, not failure — the discomfort people feel at this stage is a sign the learning has started, and change managers should frame it that way rather than treating it as a warning sign. Second, conscious competence is where most change programmes stop measuring. People can do the thing, so the change is marked complete — but performance is still slower and more effortful than before, and under time pressure people revert to the old method they can do unconsciously.
The learning dip
The learning dip is the fall in job performance for an individual or team before basic competence is achieved. It is not a sign that the change is failing; it is an inevitable consequence of asking people to work in an unfamiliar way.
CM3 states that the extent of the performance dip and the speed with which recovery takes place will depend on the timeliness and effectiveness of training provision. Both words matter:
- Timeliness — training too early decays before it is used; training too late leaves people working live without capability. This is exactly the concern flagged for big bang delivery, where a large gap between learning and doing must be bridged
- Effectiveness — training that transfers knowledge but never builds ability leaves people at conscious incompetence when they go live
The dip also has a direct cost implication: productivity dip is one of the named cost categories in change impact severity assessment.
What change managers must identify
CM3 gives a specific list of what change managers will want to identify:
- The subject matter experts who can support the assessment of learning needed
- The L&D specialists who can carry out effective learning needs analyses
- Whether the new skills required are developments of an existing skills base or completely new — the two demand very different learning effort
- The amount of new learning, especially of new and different skills, required and over what period of time
- The risks of the learning load becoming overwhelming
- Any early adopters who can support those whose learning comes later
Why the existing-skills question matters most
Distinguishing a development of existing skills from a completely new skill is the judgement that most often goes wrong. An accountant moving from one ledger system to another is developing an existing skill base — the accounting knowledge transfers and only the interface changes. The same accountant moving from ledger work to data analysis is acquiring a genuinely new skill, and the learning effort is an order of magnitude greater. Change plans that treat both as "two days' training" produce a much deeper dip in the second case than anyone budgeted for.
The learning load risk
"The risks of the learning load becoming overwhelming" is a real and under-managed constraint. Where several changes overlap, individuals can be asked to learn three new systems in a quarter while maintaining output. The dips compound, performance falls further than any single change would explain, and the resulting failure gets attributed to the last change rather than to saturation. Assessing the aggregate learning load across the portfolio, not just within one initiative, is part of the change manager's job.
Using early adopters
Identifying early adopters who can support later learners does three things at once: it reduces demand on formal training, it provides help from a trusted peer rather than an outsider, and it gives the early adopter a mastery and status boost at exactly the moment change is threatening both. It connects directly to change agent networks and to the voluntary adoption delivery strategy, where looking for success stories among early adopters is explicit guidance.
A claims handler can complete the new assessment correctly every time, but has to concentrate hard and work through the steps deliberately to do so. Which stage of the competence ladder is this?
What does CM3 say determines the extent of the learning dip and the speed of recovery from it?
Which of the following is NOT one of the items CM3 says change managers should identify when planning for learning during change?