Let me give you an example of how this. When you were young you will have
seen people driving cars. Before you were even aware of cars you could not
possibly have known if you could drive one or not. You were a
Non-Conscious Incompetent (NCI). On your first driving lesson you were in
the Conscious Incompetent (CI) state. You knew you couldn't drive, that's
why you were taking lessons. By the time you passed the test you should
have been in the Conscious Competent (CC) state. You could drive, but boy
did you have to concentrate. Do you remember your first solo drive? It was
probably a very nervous time. But now, if you have been driving any length
of time, you will be in the Non-Conscious Competent (NCC) state. Be
honest. Have you ever driven to work, and when you got there couldn't
actually recall the journey? I know I have. You are actually driving to
work, and the process is being controlled by your Non-Conscious mind.
Coaches and trainers have been aware of this phenomenon for some time.
Thanks to the advances in neuroscience we now know how this process works.
During the NCI stage there are no associations formed in your brain to
relate to the task. In effect there is no reference to the task available
to your mind in your hippocampus. Once you become aware of the task your
hippocampus needs to put it somewhere in your minds filing system.
Initially the only place it can file it is in your "things I can't do"
list. As you take lessons and learn more about the task, the hippocampus
is then able to associate parts of the task with things you have done
before.
This is a very important concept. Scientists used to believe that
ideas, tasks and memories were stored in specific areas of the cortex. We
now know that this is not the case. Our memories and thoughts only exist
as they are brought together in our frontal lobes. When we think of
something it is literally created each time from the neural connections in
our brain. In some ways we can regard our mind as being a separate entity
from our brain. Our mind is our cognitive reasoning, and the brain is the
biological entity which allows the mind to exist. In order to create our
thoughts we need to associate the different parts of the thought together,
and some scientists now believe that this is the role of the hippocampus.
If we go back to our task, it is broken down into its component parts
and each part is stored in our brain. Initially this creates a high level
of activity in our cortex. The associations are created by stringing
together a line of neurons to form a neural pathway through our brain.
When we learn something this area grows larger as nearby neurons are
recruited to learning how to do the task. We are moving from CI to CC.
Then a strange thing happens. As we repeat the task the connections
through the central core get stronger. The nearby neurons return to their
previous state. With a task requiring physical activity (which most do)
the movements required begin to become encoded in the motor cortex. Sports
coaches have referred to this process as "muscle memory". The ability to
produce a specific movement such as striking a football or swinging a golf
club, without conscious thought. But we now know that the movements are
actually encoded in the motor cortex.
Don't confuse these movements with reactions. When we pull our hand
away from something hot, a series of pre-programmed motions occur. They
are believed to be hard wired in all of us. But these new motions we have
learned through practice. And there is absolutely no doubt that the more
you practice them, the stronger the Neural Pathway becomes and the greater
your ability to perform these motions using the non-conscious parts of
your brain. You will have created a NCC state for the task.
There is therefore no doubt that repetition of a task is vital to gain
expertise in that task.
Eric Sutherland
The Business Coach |
