TEAMS THAT LEARN
QUICK TAKESHBR Special Issueaverage, its sales employees
didn’t understand or know
about 22% of its product
features, even though they
believed they did.
“Unconscious incompe-
tence” can be found at every
function, discipline, and level
in organizations. In fact, it’s
often more prominent among
experienced staff , which
is particularly problematic
because, as the go-to people
in their circles, they often
pass incorrect or incomplete
information and skills on to
others via peer-to-peer learn-
ing and training. This can
lead to signifi cant mistakes,
dissatisfi ed customers, and
even damaged corporate
reputations.
But how does a company,
manager, or individual
employee correct a compe-
tency gap about which no
one is aware? As a physician
who studies brain function,
biological variation, and how
people learn, I have some
suggestions. The fi rst step is
to get unconscious incompe-
tence on the learning agenda.
Corporate training pro-
grams need to be redesigned
to better engage learners and
empower them to admit what
they don’t know. Too many
online training modules
miss the mark here because
they rely on static content,
which most people try to click
through as quickly as possi-data from industries includ-
ing academia, health care,
technology, manufacturing,
retail, sports, and business
services, people are actually
“unconsciously incompe-
tent” in 20% to 40% of areas
critical to their performance.
One global technology com-
pany my team works with, for
example, discovered that, on- How to Teach
Employees Skills They
Don’t Know They Lack
→ by ULRIK JUUL CHRISTENSEN
New experiences can feel
daunting, especially when
people are accomplished in
their current role—but that’s
exactly why you should foster
them. Only by tackling unfa-
miliar challenges will people
get the feedback they need
to learn. Your team may not
always succeed when faced
with challenging situations,
and that’s OK. The goal is for
them to learn from the task,
not necessarily to knock it out
of the park.
Companies are investing
considerable money and time
into developing talent, but
without doing the up-front
work to ensure that leaders
are building a learning culture.
Frontline managers have the
largest and most immediate
infl uence. If you’re a manager
who wants to grow your team,
demonstrate that you’re com-
mitted to growth yourself.
Originally published on HBR.org
September 12, 2018
HBR Reprint H04J55Kristi Hedges is a senior leader-
ship coach who specializes
in executive communications
and the author of The Inspi-
ration Code: How the Best
Leaders Energize People Every
Day (AMACOM, 2017). She’s
the president of The Hedges
Company and a faculty member
in Georgetown University’s
Institute for Transformational
Leadership.
AFTER SPENDING BILLIONS of
dollars a year on corporate
learning, U.S. companies
probably assume that their
employees have the knowl-
edge and skills they need to
carry out their jobs. The em-
ployees themselves probably
think they’re prepared, too,
having gone through these
exercises. But according toEN
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