How to Do Just About Anything
Career, Lifestyle, Money Stuff, Mind-Body Research, Success Habits 1 Comment »
Anita Houghton shares a formula
There is a belief that while you can learn some skills, such as how to use a computer or drive a car, there are some which you either have or you don’t have. You will often hear people express such sentiments about leadership, for example, and singing, drawing, and being organised.
Programmed for success
The same is often thought about doctors: some seem to have a knack for diagnosis, are extraordinarily adept at practical procedures, or have a natural bedside manner. It was these kinds of beliefs that prompted a group of Californian psychologists in the seventies to ponder the question, “Why do some therapists have consistently excellent results with patients, while others do not?”
They looked for the answer to this question by studying three of these excellent therapists: Milton Erickson, a psychiatrist and hypnotherapist; Fritz Perls, cofounder of Gestalt; and Virginia Satir, a family therapist. They examined the settings where the therapists worked with patients; they listened to what they said and how they said it; they observed the techniques they used; and they even documented what they wore and the chair they sat in. They then tested each factor individually to see if it was crucial to patient outcomes, and when they had distilled the factors that were essential for success, they named the resulting framework “neurolinguistic programming.”
See and do
They called the process “modelling,” and from there came the premise: “If somebody can do something, anybody can. You just need to know how.”
Now many would think at this point, oh come on, we can’t all be Wayne Rooney, Lesley Garrett, or Nelson Mandela. It’s perfectly true that some people have a natural talent for what they do, and in some cases there are physical attributes that are impossible to emulate. Nevertheless these people do what they do in a certain way, and if you can find out exactly how they do it, then you can go a long way towards achieving their success.
The interesting part of modelling is that although someone appears to be doing something with great ease, there is actually an important structure and process to what they do.
There is a story about the professional golfer Gary Player, who was going for a difficult putt in an important competition, and he managed to put the ball straight in the hole. “That was lucky,” said an onlooker. Player turned round and said, “Funny thing is, the more I practise, the luckier I get.”
How to model a skill
Modelling questions to ask the person whose skills you admire
Testing the strategy
Stages of learning a skill
There is a model which describes the process of learning a skill. It goes like this:
Stage 1—Unconscious incompetence
Stage 2—Conscious incompetence
Stage 3—Conscious competence
Stage 4—Unconscious competence
Easy as riding a bike
Take a skill like riding a bicycle, you can see that a child who happily rides their tricycle is probably unaware that they are unable to ride a two wheeler, never having tried it. This is unconscious incompetence—when you don’t have a skill but are unaware that you don’t have it.
Then the child tries out a two wheeler for the first time, and will usually have an unpleasant surprise. They find that they can’t even get their feet off the ground at first, then they do for a few moments, before overbalancing. At some stage they’re likely to fall off. This is the most painful of the stages—conscious incompetence. If the child has the right kind of parents, chances are that their support and encouragement will to keep them going until they reach the next stage—conscious competence. The child now knows how to ride a bike, but needs to concentrate carefully every moment. The minute they stop focusing, over they go.
Then finally, when they’ve been practising for quite a while, they find they can do it without thinking. No longer do they have to concentrate on setting off, keeping their balance, and turning corners. It all comes automatically—unconscious competence.
Brief and painless
Although some skills come more naturally than others, making the early stages brief and painless, the development of any skill will go through these stages.
The crucial part of learning any skill is “conscious incompetence” as this is when many people give up. Professionals who are used to doing what they do well— for example, doctors who have been consultants for a while—find this stage especially uncomfortable.
So how do you model a skill?
The purpose of modelling a skill is to get below the surface to the hidden strategies used by the people who do it best.
Choose a skill to model
The first task is to select a skill that you would like to have. Think about the skills that you bemoan not having. Listen to yourself as you say things like: I can’t do xxxx, I wish I could xxxx; look at xxxx, I wish I could do that. What skills you would like but assume you can’t? Select something specific, such as how to put in a central line, rather than how to be a good intensive care physician.
Select a person who does it well
Once you have chosen the skill, you need to find someone who does it really well. Ideally pick two, as modelling more than one person will make it easier to spot the crucial parts of the strategy, as opposed to the red herrings. Once you have chosen your first model, ask them if they would be prepared to answer some questions about their skill. Most people will be flattered.
Ask the modelling questions
A simple conversation with somebody about their ability or skill will often give surprising insights into how they do it. However, the trouble with asking “how do you do that?” is that people who are good at something are usually at the unconscious competence stage and therefore have little conscious awareness of how they do it. They may remember the conscious incompetence or conscious competence phase, but they may not. Using tried and tested modelling questions will reveal much more, and in addition will often give new and interesting insights to the person you are modelling.
To see how this might work, let’s take an example: going to an interview. Try thinking of the last time you went for an interview and ask yourself questions in box 2.
Confidence and outcomes
Typically, doctors who do well at interviews are confident in what they offer, believing that they have at least as much chance of getting the job as anyone else. Rather than focusing on the competition, they are more likely to focus on what they want to get across. They greet the interviewers, smile appropriately, speak clearly, and have prepared the answers to the most likely questions. They believe the outcome is largely down to them.
Those who have difficulty at an interview are likely to tell you that the interview is of crucial importance, and if they don’t get it, it will be a complete disaster. They believe they won’t get it. They believe that the interviewers are against them or out to trip them up. They believe that the other people going for the job are much better than they are, and that the outcome is out of their control. The result is that they seem, and are, extremely anxious, and they fail to do themselves justice.
Dig deep
When you ask your modelling questions, be alert for clues in your model’s tone, expression, and body language, and ask supplementary questions as necessary.
You’ll need to be patient and coaxing, as the person may have to dig deep to find their strategies. “It’s just intuition” they might say, or “I don’t know how I do it, I just do it naturally.” Don’t be deterred.
Once you have a person’s strategy for doing something, it is useful to see how they monitor or test their success. You can use their techniques yourself (box 3).
Try out their strategies
As you hear the answers to your questions you may like to compare them with your own strategies for this skill. Try each of their strategies in your mind and see if you can do them and what difference they make.
Fine tune as necessary
If you find you can’t use their strategies, you need to ask for more detail and fine-tune.
[Anita Houghton provides career and executive coaching services for doctors and other professionals. Anita Houghton, consultant and coach Working Lives Partnership (www.workinglives.co.uk)]
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