I was so looking forward to visiting our friends on our trip to New York.  Clive, my husband and I were really keen on hiring a car and travelling through New York and the surrounding areas.  

 

Our friends live in a small township in New Jersey and their house is in the middle of dense woodland.  In fact, so dense is the woodland that they have never been to the bottom of their one acre garden because of the wildlife that lives in it; deer, bears, chipmunks and a host of other ‘critters’ and birds.   

 

When we got to New York our friends picked us up and drove us confidently through the city, zipping in and out of the dense traffic with all the skill of people who had been doing that all of their lives.   As you can imagine, the roads are full of cars, big and wide and packed with both slow and fast moving traffic.  In these very wide, busy roads, dense with traffic, our friends drove with ease and confidence.  To me and Clive, it seemed terrifying and we both commented that actually we didn’t fancy driving in that traffic ourselves, now, very happy to be chauffeured!!

 

 

We were in awe of the way they sped along the roads and got us around New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and all of the other states on the way to Washington DC and back.  It was a great holiday.

Recently, we had our American friends to stay with us.  We drove them around the little roads of our towns and villages and they confided in us that they were dreading the day they were going to pick up a hire car to drive to another part of the UK.  How strange it seemed that people who drive in such busy cities at home would be concerned about driving on our beautiful country roads, as they described them, and on the ‘wrong side of the road’.  

 

It made me think of the Abraham Maslow and his very useful Four Stages of Competence.  It describes what people go through when they are learning new skills.  As Coaches, we know that through the coaching process we can experience being at different stages of this cycle at different times.  

 

 

I needed to remind myself that our guests would be ok once they had a little time to practice on our local lanes.  I was confident that they would quickly develop their skills.  Their new skills developing quickly from Conscious Incompetence (knowing what lies ahead of them and feeling that they don’t yet have the skill to navigate our narrow lanes confidently) to familiarity and confidence the more they practice Conscious Competence (being aware of what they are doing well and recognising that growing skill of pulling into passing places when required). 

 

As a coach, I know that we can move from one stage of competence to another as circumstances change.  So when they picked up their car, their driving skills went from the unconscious competence (driving with great skill without having to think too consciously about it) of driving at home, to conscious incompetence (aware these roads are different and require different responses and decision) as they learned about the differences of the car, driving on the opposite side and getting used to the narrow roads.  

 

We met up with them a week later and by then they had moved rapidly from being aware of their lack of skill to being happy and able to navigate well.  So relaxed are they now, that It was interesting to hear them say they would have to be careful when returning to the US. They were fearful that they might have learned UK driving methods so well that they would have to drive ‘mindfully’ when back home in the US.  Fascinating isn’t it!

 

It’s remarkable how quickly change can occur.  All we need to do is trust the process and gather the support we know is useful to us and we will all be so comfortable in new situations.

 

Jane