During my client career planning sessions we also discuss their development needs focusing on how to improve their leadership effectiveness by embracing certain practices espoused in books by their authors. Clients also ask me for suggestions on what books to read, what videos to watch, or what audio recordings to listen to for improving their overall effectiveness. Although I have a list of books and such tools that I keep updated on an ongoing basis, my view of their direct and immediate effectiveness in actually improving one’s leadership effectiveness is pessimistic.

Why?

The best analogy I can provide when using a book or such tools (videos, blogs, audio recordings, and such) to improve your own leadership or personal effectiveness is to imaging reading a book about teaching yourself how to ride a bicycle or how to swim. This also applies to learning a foreign language by reading a book about it; it’s not easy. You simply cannot learn that from a book or by watching a video, no matter how good that book or video is or how famous that author. You must live that experience by practicing new behaviors under the guidance of someone who can hold your hands as you learn; someone who helps you with taking off your “training wheels.”

Of course, this analogy is somewhat specious, but I have chosen it to make my point. The same applies to a lesser degree when participants attend a training course or go to a class to learn a new skill. Although this is more useful than merely reading a book or watching a video because in such an instructional setting you can get more out of it by participation and by interacting with a good instructor. But, once again, depending on its design and your own involvement and commitment to internalize what is presented the half-life of such instruction varies from about a week to something more, but not something that alters your behavior in a sustainable and measurable way beyond that half-life.

Don’t get me wrong! I am not suggesting that training sessions, well-written books, and good videos are not useful to inspire you to act and to help you change your ways; they are useful in some limited ways. But, their usefulness is bounded by how you use them beyond just the experience in which you indulge yourself with it.

Let me explain:

Unconscious Incompetence: When someone lacks a certain skill or capability such as an influencing skill or negotiating expertise they often operate from the first of the four stages of their evolution; the first of these being the state of Unconscious Incompetence or blind ignorance. Here, you do not know what you do not know. A book or a similar development tool can help you move from this state to the next stage of evolution: Conscious Incompetence. In this state you know what you now do not know and you are interested in acquiring that skill, if sufficiently motivated. Although a book or video can help you understand what that skill looks like when practiced, it cannot always help you through the journey—much like reading a book about how to ride a bike.

Conscious Incompetence: Watching someone practice the skill you are trying to acquire or reading a book about it takes you from Unconscious Incompetence to Conscious incompetence. In this state you are able to understand and appreciate the gaps you have in your own competency about a particular skill that you are trying to acquire. You can further increase your awareness of your gaps in acquiring this skill by watching experts plying their craft. But, unless you take the next step of an expert helping you through your own struggle of overcoming your lack of ability, it is usually difficult to move to the next step.

Conscious Competence: To move into this stage requires both handholding and diligent practice. You cannot become Consciously Competent by merely watching someone or even by their showing how to do what you are trying to learn from them. You must first practice under their watchful eyes and then go on with your own ways of doing it until you internalize the skill in ways that works for you. Conscious Competence for any skill requires both knowledge and skill derived from practicing what works for you. Not the same approach works for everyone, no matter how well one understands the theory behind it; reducing any skill in a practicable way requires your own diligent practice and knowing what works and what does not for your own style. Conscious Competence implies that whenever you have to use the new skill you must consciously apply what you learn and struggle through the process of making it work for you with effort. It is not effortless, not is it instinctive at this stage; for this to happen you must take it to the next stage of

Unconscious Competence: This is the ultimate state of acquiring a new skill, where you do not have to even think consciously about applying the skill you just mastered; it becomes instinctive, much like bike riding or swimming. Getting to this state requires many experiences of success under your belt, your own approach and style to how to practice this new skill, and confidence in your own abilities to improvise in real time to make things work. This is a life’s work! If it were otherwise, anyone could master brain surgery by reading a book about it!

So, what are the steps for improving your skill in a new area with the aid of books and other tools typically available for people to improve their professional abilities and to become successful in their endeavors? Here is my list:

1. Identify a skill or a competency you are trying to conquer. At this stage you are in a state of Unconscious Incompetence.
2. Find resources to help you in improving your skill: self-help books, videos, training, etc. Going through these will help you get to the state of Conscious Incompetence. Any expectation to go further with these tools can typically be misguided—even futile for most.
3. Find someone who is an expert or who has mastered this skill and ask them to help you in a specific situation you’ve encountered and ask them how you could use what you learned, read, or saw to apply to the challenge at hand. Ask them what they would do and how they can guide you to make it work for you under their guidance. Once you do enough of these under their guidance you are reaching a state of Conscious Competence. Keep practicing and learning how things work and what adjustments you need to develop your own style of making it work in different situations. With this practice you are now headed to Unconscious Competence.
4. Keep practicing your new skill and find someone who is now struggling through their own state of Unconscious Incompetence and share with them what you have learned. By mentoring someone who is new to this you further your expertise and become even more confident in your new skill.
5. As you master this new skill develop your own insights to further this craft and publish your insights to help someone who is still in the state of Unconscious Incompetence! This now becomes a virtuous cycle and you are paying going forward.

Books and other tools are never enough for most people to become self-sufficient in acquiring something new as a skill. It requires much more and this blog tells you what that is.

Good luck!