This article aims to explain the various stages of learning that the human brain goes through to learn any new skill. Learning is often a strenuous journey, and this difficult path is filled with confusion, discomfort and the inherent tendency to remain in the state of inertia (resistance to change!). The science of learning has been difficult to decipher purely because of the tremendous speed at which the brain absorbs and transforms data making the process almost instantaneous. Through the Competence Matrix, I would like to take you through the learning process in slow-motion, almost pausing at every instant to take a step back and comprehend how at each stage, the brain’s outlook towards learning constantly changes.

Let’s take the example of an individual’s (say Jack) desire to learn car driving and witness the various stages of learning that he goes through, before eventually mastering the skill of car driving:

Stage 1 – Unconscious Incompetence: Ignorance is Bliss!

Jack has owned a bike all his life and he finds that riding a bike is cost effective, fast and simply convenient. He also takes great pride in the fact that he is good at bike riding. Whenever his close friends who own a car lecture him about the benefits of driving a car, he mockingly tells them how bike riding is more advantageous when compared to car driving. This is the first and critical stage of learning; Jack will not embark upon learning how to drive a car as he does not see any value in doing so. In fact he does not even acknowledge his incompetence with respect to the skill of car driving. At this stage, Jack is happy with his definition of the perfect motor world and is indifferent to car driving.

However we can pause to note that Jack needs a strong reason to want to learn car driving.

Stage 2 – Conscious Incompetence: Learning is painful!

Now enters Jill into Jack’s life and all of a sudden travelling by car becomes a necessity. Jack decides to sign up for a 30 day driving course so that he can learn to drive around in his friend’s car. At this stage, Jack has a strong reason for learning the new skill; he recognizes the value of possessing the skill and also acknowledges his incompetence with respect to car driving. The first few days of the driving course characterize this stage of ‘Conscious Incompetence’ where learning is awkward and confusing. The driving instructor is often yelling out loud to apply the brakes, the clutch or the indicator! Often Jack gets frustrated with his inability to drive, he gets angry at the instructor and fear grips him when he sees a huge bus trying to overtake the car. At this stage, mistakes are a plenty and Jack often thinks about quitting the driving class.

Resistance to change is at its highest here.

Stage 3 – Conscious Competence: Learning is now exciting!

Jack is now 20 days into the course and car driving is now relatively simpler. Jack knows all the controls, his instructor talks calmly to him since Jack understands and follows the instructions given. Jack can now drive without fear and confusion and he is slowly getting comfortable at driving. His concentration is at its peak and he is extremely conscious towards the way he accelerates, changes gear or overtakes vehicles. Though there is significant amount of conscious involvement by Jack in driving, he now enjoys his driving classes.

Learning the skill is now exciting and he feels a sense of achievement regarding his learning!

Stage 4 – Unconscious Competence: Learning is Intuitive.

Jack has completed the course and has been driving the car for more than 3 months. Jack is comfortably cruising along the roads and overtaking buses with ease. Now, Jack has one hand on the steering, one hand adjusting volume on the music system, loud music playing in the background and he is simultaneously checking out the billboards on the highway. He has now mastered the skill of driving; it has become intuitive and automatic, along with the extra ability to multitask! Driving has indeed become a way of life!

The process of learning is complete and all the initial inhibitions towards learning have vanished!

Stage 5 – Conscious of Unconscious Competence: Trainee becomes the Trainer!

This is the ultimate stage in learning which is sometimes referred to as “reflective ability”. Upon reaching this stage, Jack can teach his friends how to drive a car by donning the instructor’s hat. He is made aware of his unconscious competence of the driving skill where he can transfer his learning to another individual.

He now becomes the trainer and many people can benefit from his learning.

When mentors and leaders acknowledge the existence of the learning matrix, driving change becomes easier and scientific. When bringing about change in behaviors or training people on a new process, a good leader clearly recognizes the various stages of learning at which each unique individual resides and customizes his/her training approach to each individual. The advantages are multi-fold; individuals who are in the Conscious Incompetence stage (strongly resistant to change) can be carefully guided to the Conscious Competence stage (ok with change). Individuals who are in the Unconscious Competence stage can be motivated to reach the 5^th and the ultimate stage of learning where these individuals now become the change agents. These change agents would then inspire other people to give the change a chance, a humble try which would create a snowball effect and more people would eventually embrace change!

I mean taking the efforts to categorise data and give it headers? what happened to free will? Again making a conscious effort to start sentences with a Capital letter. All programmed into us mere mortals.

A baby comes into the world (trying hard not to post any wisecrack here), and its well wishers are eager to give it the best of the world. Planning begins, plotting if i may say and the experience that the kid is exposed to is pre determined by people based on their own experiences. No wonder the rich are getting richer and the poorer, well are becoming middle class.

Again the objective of the this post is being defeated since we talking about serious things. But stay with me. There is this one thing you might want to know about me (like you have nothing else to do in your life other than staring at a random person’s blog).

I like paradoxes. [Wiki Speaks: A paradox is a seemingly true statement or group of statements that lead to a contradiction or a situation which seems to defy logic or intuition. The term is also used for an apparent contradiction that actually expresses a non-dual truth such as two true sentences which put together seem incompatible as both being true].

Also, I like beating around the bush! (Note the popular application of the concept in the above 4 paragraphs!). Well cutting the chase, off late it dawned upon me (actually a good friend of mine held up the torch!) THAT I am taking life way too seriously and restlessly if i might dare to add. What next??  What next?? What next?? seems to be the mantra.

Also, since I like generalizing (flaw.) and I am judgmental (common people flaw – note the generalization) and most importantly I can write what i want; I feel people take their lives way too seriously. Some of this seriousness comes from a delusion that most people have that they are born to achieve greatness. I don’t mean you aren’t (note the word “Most” in the previous line which means you dont have to necessarily fall in that category!). So delusions are good as long as they are empowering (ok one last time, big words and jargon like life changing, empowering, POA, vision can be also represented through other words – Beating around the bush). But the sad state of affairs is that people work under this delusion and the minute they encounter an obstacle, a failure or a loss, they lose their minds. Primarily understand that it was a delusion to begin with.

So generalizing, I feel that Life itself likes paradoxes (heights) for only those who manage to keep believing in the belief that they can win despite failing many times over and many times again can actually win, and win BIG. Since the percentage of such fools is really small, we now know why 95% of the worlds wealth is controlled by 5 % of the population.

Since you have read enough of things deviating away from the topic, here i come (duh!). The key to “Light Le” is to be contented but at the same time not complacent. Take care of your present to the best of your abilities and the future will take care of itself (since you will be taking care of the present in the future also!). Dont fret about your future. It will work out.

The single most reason for your unhappyness is that your life is not happening the way you want it to at this instant. So be contented and le it light!

Cheers.

“You know, the ancient Egyptians had a beautiful belief about death. When their souls got to the entrance to heaven, the guards asked two questions. Their answers determined whether they were able to enter or not. ‘Have you found joy in your life?’ and ‘Has your life brought joy to others?’’

1)  Lay down on the Nigambo beach at midnight and gaze at the ocean and stars (again!).

2) Be a life coach and bring breakthrough results in people’s life.

3) Learn Swimming and swim in the ocean in Pondy just to prove a point!

4) Learn classical music  from a true master .

5) Go to Africa and stay in the wildlife reserve and watch a cheetah chase down its prey.

6) Be silent for a week.

7) Jump off a cliff into the ocean (post Point#3.)

Open a school and provide a true holistic education to kids at nominal fees.

9) Play chess all day.

10) Play Poker in Las Vegas.

11) Own a snooker table and a indoor sports arena and invite all my friends to play indoor football.

12) Host an ink smudge and hand painting art contest and sell the same (people buy these things!)

13) Go to Amsterdam for the Spring Electronic Music/Dance festival and listen to Tiesto play.

14) Go on a pilgrimage to the Kumbh Mela.

15) Go to the Himalayas and sit atop of one of the tall peaks and do nothing!

16) Learn Hip-Hop dance style (the moves.) Then dance with the lights!

17) Open a sports coaching summer camp.

18)  Author a book.

19) Breed St.Bernard dogs.

20) Act in a Play.

21) Run naked in heavy rain amidst nature.

22) Learn to play the guitar.

23) Fly a jet/plane (partially fulfill my childhood dream of becoming an IAF Pilot).

24) Learn VENTRILOQUISM (it will be fun!)

25) Go, LIVE! – CREATE A WEBSITE FOR PEOPLE.

26) Learn the art of Parkour and Road Running.

27) Learn Martial Arts!

28) Go on a road trip for 6 months.

29) Finish reading the Bhagvad Gita.

30) Live in a Buddhist monastery for a month.

31) Skydiving.

32) Learn Hypnotism.

33) Get 2 tattoos on both my arms.

34) Meet A.R Rahman, Sachin Tendulkar and Mohammad Azharuddin.

35) Learn Scuba Diving.

36) Re-invent education.

37) Learn to play a lot of music instruments.

and that’s it for now, will keep updating the list as new urges surge in!

Neural Pathways:

Great teachers….
• Create vision and strategy
• Establish clear expectations
• Help their students to solve problems themselves
• Support them in making their own decisions
• Give consistent positive feedback on performance

• Change is pain. Organizational change is unexpectedly difficult because it provokes sensations of physiological discomfort.
• Behaviorism doesn’t work. Change efforts based on incentive and threat (the carrot and the stick) rarely succeed in the long run.
• Humanism is overrated. In practice, the conventional empathic approach of connection and persuasion doesn’t sufficiently engage people.
• Focus is power. The act of paying attention creates chemical and physical changes in the brain.
• Expectation shapes reality. People’s preconceptions have a significant impact on what they perceive.
• Attention density shapes identity. Repeated, purposeful, and focused attention can lead to long-lasting personal evolution.

• 1. To take any kind of committed action, people need to think things thru for themselves:
• 2. People experience a degree of inertia around thinking for themselves due to the energy required;
• 3. The act of having an aha moment gives off the kind of energy needed for people to become motivated and willing to take action

• We have a limited amount of working memory
• Once people have done a job for some time, they are unconscious much of their workday
• It’s almost impossible to change any hardwiring that’s been imbedded in the brain
• Big difference between a thought (a map held in our working memory) and a habit (a map that’s hardwired in the deeper part of our brain)

• Neurons need positive feedback in some form to create long-term connections
• Instead of looking for behaviours to fix in others, become fascinated with identifying and growing people’s strengths
• Directions a conversation can go
– Philosophical
– Detailed
– Problem focused
– Solution focused
• It only takes 10 to 20% of the time to use a self directed  approach than it does to make suggestions

Remove the word ‘why’ from our conversations, and we’ll become more solution-focused
• Assume that people have the answers, and we’re just here to help them to think
• When other people are able to make their own mental picture of what we’re saying, their brain sends a signal to the head to nod a little
• Advice rarely works

Questions you could ask to deepen people’s learning
• What was your big insight this week?
• What did you find out about yourself?
• What other insight did that open up?
• What did you discover about your thinking or habits?
• What new habit did you notice starting to emerge?

• According to neuroscientist John Ratey, any kind of physical activity helps the brain process ideas
• Have a lie-down. A recent study showed people came up with better ideas while horizontal
• Goleman (in Emotional Intelligence) found that social isolation was roughly twice as detrimental to our health as smoking

Man has constantly striven to find ways and means to fend of pain for harmony is something invaluable to mankind. And in this quest to remain stable in his comfort zone, man has succeeded in inventing, discovering chemicals and therapies that attempts to conquer pain. To think of it, a mere thought is capable of signaling your brain to shut down the complex processes that keep us alive and kicking. Broken bones or a broken heart, time has always been the best healer and distractions definitely help. Speaking of which music; any genre of individual preference is a great analgesic.

Most importantly, pain reminds you of your insignificant existence and stature, it stares at you between your eyes and blurts out that ” You are not in control”. That definitely you are not, but interestingly, the same pain presents you with an opportunity to learn how to work in cohesion of your mind and body and transcend beyond your existing thresholds. If you pay close attention, you will learn about the most evolved chunk of carbon matter in history of evolution – “The human body”, and understand the networks that exist within which most amazingly perform the nearly impossible activity of keeping you alive. Yes!  99% of the mass of the human body is made up of just six elements: oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus and more than 14 elements in trace amounts. So you contemplate on life itself for mere combination of these elements do not come anywhere close to the phenomenon of ‘life’ itself.

So here we are, me and you with pain in your bodies, heart and soul, in a maddening rush towards rejuvenation, towards Utopia,  in pursuit of happiness, in pursuit of things which may or may not make sense at the outset but all will finally complete the puzzle of existence, on the event of which one would dissolve back to those elements and complete the circle of life.

So while you are here at it, smile; make hay , the sun is shining, do what seems right no matter how illogical, give it your best shot. Heck its one life, your only chance. So there would be things going against your tide, but the surf’s more fun in rough seas, most importantly pain teaches you that there is a brighter day tomorrow since you have seen the worst, it gently nudges you to grow beyond yourself, surpass your own expectations and limitations. Pain be it a broken bone or a broken heart heals with time, my friend.

This was part of my fest entry for the Best Manager event. (From the archives).

Values

Values are those things that really matter to each of us … the ideas and beliefs we hold as special. Something close to our hearts. Something we can look upto and say ‘ This is me, and hey! I am going to stick to this no matter what.’

A value is a belief, a mission, or a philosophy that is meaningful. Whether we are consciously aware of them or not, every individual has a core set of personal values. Values can range from the commonplace, such as the belief in hard work and punctuality, to the more psychological, such as self-reliance, concern for others, and harmony of purpose.So after careful consideration and pondering I came up with a set of 7 values which were most appealing to me:

Core Values:

1. Learning.
2. Respect.
3. Teamwork.
4. Credibility.
5. Social Conscience.
6. Entrepreneurship.
7. Passion.

More color on these words!

1. LEARNING

“Education is not for school, but for life.”

Life is a continuous process, we cease to exist the moment we stop evolving. And i believe we evolve only through learning. Its stupidity to believe we know it all. For great is a man who admits he knows nothing!

I take opportunities to learn from everything, its good in some ways for you become kinda very optimistic in nature as you would even take failures as a lesson so that you wouldn’t repeat the same in the future. You “EVOLVE” and evolution is nature.

And its kinda fun to experiment with new things, ideas and events. Life becomes more meaningful when we unlearn what we were taught while we didn’t have a clue about the lessons. We go on to seek knowledge lest we realize that it is around us, all we got to do is to put our palms out and reach for it.

2. RESPECT

“Treat a thief like a thief and treat a saint like a saint” – Lord Krishna.

I have always believed in this dictum, for you can only expect as much respect as you give. But my culture and upbringing teaches me to show respect to my elders and teachers which i would always do at any cost but that respect if forced wouldn’t have the element of love in it, it would be just respect.

One should not be the first to always disrespect someone else, and even if disrespected, one shouldn’t return the same for what would be the difference between the two. But one can always not show respect and yet be not disrespectful.

And out of all, i respect kids and animals, for they are the purest forms.

3. TEAMWORK

“Out of all needs that a man has, the greatest among them is the need to be acknowledged, loved and made a part of a social group”

This is something that i have observed silently over the years and i can vouch every word of it to be true. I dont know much about how the yesterday’s world was but i do know that today anything we do alone isnt as much fun and productive when 5 people would do it.

Heck, I love working in teams, i believe that one’s creativity, convincing abilities, leadership skills would be enhanced with a congenial environment created while working in a team.

You would have your mates to work, where if the relationships are nourished correctly then every day of your work would be play . And I have strived to incorporate the same in small things i do and trust me it gives you immense satisfaction and peace of mind.

4. CREDIBILITY

” Never lose the degree of trust an individual would have in you , for your words lay the foundations for your actions, and once your words lose value its when your doom sets in.”

I learnt this word when i was 16 i guess, when i was part of a MLF company, i was told rather learnt it myself that if anyone need to trust you, you would have to prove it to them first.

And boy! what a word this credibility thing is. Overused and made into something everyone shudders the moment they hear about it . Personally i believe that everyone must keep up their word, you know like i say i would do something then i should do it no matter what else i should have said no in the first place.

But the problem is that we find it difficult to say no to “Others” , we can say no to our near and dear ones but not to others. So what happens is that when we say yes, the other person would think that it is a yes. But to us the yes would be “maybe i ll do it “, “no”, ” no, definitely not!” , “i don’t really care” and so on and so forth .

Eventually we all would realize the hard way or a softer one that nobody would trust our words.  So don’t lose that credibility my friend!

5.SOCIAL CONSCIENCE

“We came, we saw, we enjoyed and we left! – What difference did it make to anyone around us?”

To a certain extent all of us are selfish, agreed! But it shouldn’t be so much so that we start not caring about anything that isn’t our concern.

Whatever happens around us, like it or not we have a part in it . And while we are here, lets make our contribution and leave for then life would be more meaningful. To me society would constitute everything that’s around us, the nature, the animals, and us humans.

It is our responsibility, in fact our duty to contribute and i believe in this from the very depths of existence.

6. ENTREPRENEURSHIP

“Seek opportunities everywhere, they are plenty to be found, just seek!”

One thing i believed in since my childhood was to put my abilities to use in the best possible way to make a positive impact to the world around, so that people would say “He Lived!” .

One should try to be innovative, take risks for life is fun when it is lived on the edge. We need to come blazing out of our skins to make a point and do what it takes to prove that it was a point worth standing for.

Entrepreneurship means much beyond to me. It defines the essence with which i should constantly upgrade, address the environment around me and make the most of it for myself and everyone else.

7. PASSION

“Life is defined by not the number of breaths you take, but by the moments that take your breath away”

Passion is a strong word which can be described by lovers, fierce friends and sportsmen. You put your heart and soul into something that you believe in so that you can get i or at least strive towards it.

We dream of many things but its only the passionate who aspire . In whatever we do , if we continue doing how we did it in the most mediocre ways possible then it isn’t worth doing at all.

Passion my friend, breathes a fresh lease of life into anything we embark upon. It guides us and motivates us when all chips are down , it tell us go on doing what you are doing as if it is the only thing you were born to do . And when we find that degree of passion then one becomes invincible.

Do I need to be Happy to make others Happy?

This is a debate that many behavioral scientists have indulged in for long. They quote a proverb “You cannot give away anything unless you have it.” I used to argue against this with many professionals, but I could not convince them. Just think, before formal counseling came into effect, who were the counselors? ….. The poor village priest or teacher who barely had enough for himself, or the grandmother who was married off at nine and had become widowed at thirteen? Where was the happiness, the fulfillment these people had? And yet many of them were better counselors than you and me.

Don’t worry if life has given you more than your fair share of kicks and brickbats. Don’t worry if you carry scars that may never go away. As you begin a brand new year, don’t be anxious about what the morrow may have in store for you. When darkness comes, light cannot be far behind. If you want to reach out, just go ahead. You don’t need a reservoir of happiness to give it to others. As you keep spreading happiness and light, you will keep getting more and more in your stock.