{"id":343,"date":"2010-07-03T09:23:42","date_gmt":"2010-07-03T09:23:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saasoft.com\/blog\/?p=343"},"modified":"2010-07-03T09:23:42","modified_gmt":"2010-07-03T09:23:42","slug":"is-this-second-nature-or-blissful-ignorance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/?p=343","title":{"rendered":"Is this Second Nature or Blissful Ignorance?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Four<\/a>I haven’t done a Post-It doodle for a while so here is one of my favourites that I was reminded of this week.\u00a0 Recently my organisation has mandated that we complete a 360-feedback exercise – which for me generated some anxiety – even fear.\u00a0Why?\u00a0What am I scared of?\u00a0Could it be that I\u00a0am unconsciously aware that there are things I am not very good – I just don’t know what they are –\u00a0and by asking for feedback I will become painfully aware of my limitations? What then?\u00a0Will I able to address those weaknesses or do I have to live with them?\u00a0And even more painful to consider;\u00a0what if I\u00a0believed I was\u00a0good at\u00a0something because I have been doing it so long it has become second nature\u00a0– and I discover that what I was good at is not longer appropriate or needed? Wow! That is not going to feel\u00a0much fun.\u00a0 I think I’ll avoid the\u00a0whole process by keeping too busy\u00a0to complete the online questionnaire.\u00a0\u00a0That strategy did not work of course – a head-in-the-sand\u00a0approach often doesn’t.\u00a0\u00a0So I completed it and await\u00a0my fate with trepidation.<\/p>\n

The model of learning that I have sketched\u00a0is called the Conscious-Competence model or –\u00a0as I prefer to call it – Capability Awareness.\u00a0 We all start bottom left – not\u00a0aware of our lack of capablity – let’s call that\u00a0Blissful Ignorance.\u00a0 Then something happens that challenges\u00a0our complacency\u00a0– we become aware of\u00a0our lack of capability – ouch! That is Painful Awareness.\u00a0 From there we have\u00a0three choices – retreat\u00a0(denial), stay where we are (distress) or move forward (discovery).\u00a0 If we choose the path of discovery we\u00a0must actively invest time and effort to\u00a0develop our capability to\u00a0get to\u00a0the top right position – where we are aware of what we can do –\u00a0the state of Know How.\u00a0 Then as we practice or new capability and build our experience we gradually become less aware of out new capability – it becomes Second Nature.\u00a0 We can now do it without thinking – it becomes sort of hard-wired.\u00a0\u00a0Of course, this is a very useful place to get to: it does\u00a0conceal a danger though – we start\u00a0to take our capability\u00a0for granted as we focus our attention on new challenges.\u00a0We become complacent – and as\u00a0the world around us is constantly\u00a0changing we may be unaware\u00a0our once-appropriate capability may\u00a0be growing\u00a0less\u00a0useful.\u00a0 Being a wizard\u00a0with a set of log-tables and a slide-rule became an unnecessary skill when\u00a0digital calculators appeared – that was fairly obvious.\u00a0 The silent danger is that we slowly\u00a0slide from Second-Nature to Blissful-Ignorance; usually as we get older,\u00a0become more senior, acquire more influence, more money\u00a0and more power.\u00a0 We now have the\u00a0dramatic context for a nasty shock when, as a once capable and respected leader, we suddenly and painfully become aware\u00a0of our irrelevance. Many leaders do not survive the shock and many organisations do not survive it either\u00a0– especially if a\u00a0once-powerful\u00a0leader\u00a0switches to self-justifying denial and the blame-others behaviour.<\/p>\n

To protect ourselves\u00a0from this\u00a0unhappy fate just requires that we\u00a0understand the dynamic\u00a0of this deceptively simple model;\u00a0it requires actively\u00a0fostering a curious mindset; it requires a willingness to continuously challenge ourselves;\u00a0to openly learn\u00a0from a wide network of others who have more capability\u00a0in the area\u00a0we want to develop; and to\u00a0be open to sharing with\u00a0others what we\u00a0have learned.\u00a0 Maybe 360 feedback is not such a scary idea?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I haven’t done a Post-It doodle for a while so here is one of my favourites that I was reminded of this week.\u00a0 Recently my organisation has mandated that we complete a 360-feedback exercise – which for me generated some anxiety – even fear.\u00a0Why?\u00a0What am I scared of?\u00a0Could it be that I\u00a0am unconsciously aware that … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Is this Second Nature or Blissful Ignorance?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,34,35,41,42,43,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-examples","category-questions","category-reflections","category-stories","category-how","category-why","category-teach"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hcse.blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}