I was watching the unique and unusual opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics yesterday, set not in a stadium but along the banks of the Seine, and was struck by one comment from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach in his welcoming speech. He addressed all the assembled athletes by saying “This is the pinnacle of your Olympic journey. You have come to Paris as athletes. Now you are Olympians.” Some were from well organised and talented teams like France and the USA who will expect to win lots of medals, but others were from much smaller countries with far fewer competitors. However, they were all welcomed as a part of the Olympic family even though often after many years of training some will only participate and not succeed in winning gold, silver or bronze. Nevertheless, all the athletes are seen as a part of the same privileged fraternity.

It made me think about the parallel with professional practice and the challenges that involves. I recall that when I was first working in the City of London as a lawyer (in house but also as a part of a small private practice) some partners, particularly in large city law firms, had a tendency to look down on their in-house colleagues as somehow not of the same professional calibre or meriting the same professional recognition. This changed a bit as they came to realise who authorised their bills, but there remained a residual prejudice in my experience against lawyers in industry. Since then, I have had the privilege of being both a partner in two city law firms, and a senior in house lawyer in multinational companies in the energy and technology industries. Indeed, I moved from industry to private practice and then back again. I have come to realise that whilst the skill sets are to some extent different, and the working experience definitely is, there is simply no justification or rationale for saying one is “better” than the other. 

It is also now generally recognised that as lawyers there is a clear and viable career choice to be made between working in a law firm and for an organisation in the public or private sectors. Indeed, now there is a plethora of advice as to which branch of the profession to follow and when. See for example this article Working in-house - how different is it from private practice? – “A key skill for the in-house lawyer is being able to explain the law succinctly in a business context, including verbally. This still requires a thorough understanding of the law and relevant issues while emphasising how the information is communicated. It’s necessary to capture attention and get quickly to the key points for the audience in question.”

Or this article In-house vs. Law firm. What's the difference?  - “in house your only client is the business you work for, and you could cover anything from the small print on an employment contract or company policy, to navigating the legal intricacies of intellectual property or business procurement. You can become a part of the company and even shape its future.”

The same is true in other professions such as medicine where you can choose to specialise in one area such as surgery and aim to work as a consultant in a hospital or be a general practitioner. In the UK you can also choose between the public and private sectors. See this article about the US system Working at a hospital vs. private practice: What's right for you? which comments “And while you might start out as a new physician with a heavy call load, hospital employment frequently offers greater opportunities for career advancement, positioning you for increased responsibility and higher income in the future.”

From my experience however, the potential for prejudice can be far broader than that between different categories of the same profession. I have seen lawyers in both private practice and industry see themselves as somehow superior to other professionals such as commercial advisers, project managers, procurement advisers, financial colleagues and in particular salespeople. In my experience I have learnt so much from each of these diverse professionals – and you do not have to have a law degree to qualify as a professional. I have worked with commercial colleagues whose skill set in delivering and expanding services under a large customer contract was exemplary and way beyond my ability. I know project managers whose organisational skills and processes put us as lawyers (whether in private practice or in house) frankly to shame. Procurement teams develop the bedrock of many organisations by establishing cost effective contracts with all manner of suppliers on a global basis. And salespeople – they really get a lot of stick from other professional colleagues – cutting corners, accepting unnecessary risk etc. However, in reality without them the wheels of industry and commerce would not turn and there would often be no technology or energy or any other companies providing goods and services.

Of course, it is incumbent on us professionals, as it is with athletes to train hard, keep learning and follow the highest professional standards whatever discipline we follow. We owe this to ourselves, to our firms and our companies as well as more generally. The IOC Olympic values are “solidarity, equality and human dignity”. See this article Professionalism which says “professionalism involves consistently achieving high standards, both in the work you do and the way you behave” and suggests that “The eight core characteristics of professionalism are: Competence, Knowledge, Conscientiousness, Integrity, Respect, Emotional Intelligence, Appropriateness, and Confidence.”

So, as we all look forward to our summer holidays (this is reported to be the busiest weekend on the roads in the UK since summer 2016), whatever our skill set and wherever we choose to practice we are all professionals or Olympians if you like.

In any event before you know it, we will all have been replaced by some robotic AI and be able to spend all of our time on the beach!!
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As the saying goes, "Professionalism is not the job you do, it's how you do the job."
 

I was fortunate enough to be able to go to Wimbledon last week with No 1 Court tickets to see some of the most amazing tennis. Only when you are actually there can you appreciate the speed and finesse with which the top players, men and women alike, hit the ball. I also learnt for the first time (it’s amazing what you don’t know), actually from my Tai Chi instructor again, of this great learning sequence. 

• Unconscious incompetence – where we don’t even have sufficient awareness to even recognise our lack of ability or knowledge - ignorance
• Conscious incompetence – here at least know we don’t know as it were and that there is a lot more to learn – my Tai Chi probably falls into this category - awareness
• Conscious competence – where we get things right thinking carefully about it - learning
• Unconscious competence – where we just do something really well without really thinking about it – the best professional tennis players definitely fall into this category – mastery.

See this Wikipedia article Four stages of competence which calls this the "conscious competence" learning model which “relates to the psychological states involved in the process of progressing from incompetence to competence in a skill”.  It sums this psychology theory up as follows:
“The four stages suggest that individuals are initially unaware of how little they know, or unconscious of their incompetence. As they recognize their incompetence, they consciously acquire a skill, then consciously use it. Eventually, the skill can be utilized without it being consciously thought through: the individual is said to have then acquired unconscious competence.”

So, whilst this is clearly applicable to sports and to martial arts, I found myself considering to what extent does this apply in business and specifically to our professional practices. 

First if you think about business generally then this learning model is definitely relevant. See this article The four stages of competence and how they apply in business which proposes that in the context of business skills like “Communication, time management, critical thinking, problem-solving, teamwork, resilience, and integrity” then “this model can help managers and employees identify areas where skills are lacking and create strategies for improving performance and productivity.”

It then seems to me that a learning process like this is equally relevant to professional practice either in enhancing our existing knowledge or developing new skills. See this quite academic article in a medical context Contextualised reflective competence: a new learning model promoting reflective practice for clinical training which discusses this “conscious competency model” and takes it a stage further: “The contextualised reflective competence framework has its origins in the conscious competency framework, an established learning paradigm within healthcare professions education, and it has been developed to encompass some of the vital concepts that the conscious competency matrix was lacking: the promotion of ongoing reflection practice, accurate assumptions of the learner’s original mindset, variations in everyday performance, and erosion of skills.”

I think that one trap we fall into as professionals in this learning context is an assumption that as we get more skilled and practiced in our chosen career we “know it all”. I don’t think this is the right approach from my personal experience and observation. I recall another martial arts instructor some years ago in Washinkai Karate saying that one thing new black belts did was to go back to basics and for example really master basic punching – nothing fancy. To keep improving we need to be conscious of the need to be going round the same learning loop. 

In any event never mind keeping up our established knowledge - we should all I suggest be constantly looking to learn new things to improve and extend our professional capabilities. I remember the founding father of the first law firm I worked in David Freeman coming back from a business opportunity meeting and saying in effect I know this is not an area we not particularly strong in, but let’s learn and see if we can competently meet this new client’s requirements.

As Richard Branson has written, “If somebody offers you an amazing opportunity but you are not sure you can do it, say yes — then learn how to do it later.” Of course, there are professional limits to this – a surgeon will not want to carry out a procedure he or she has no experience of. But then again, I recall my cousin who is a consultant surgeon explaining how he and his colleagues had engaged in extensive new training in order to come to grips with using robotics to enhance their skill sets.

How then do you move through the four stages? I have realised that in Tai Chi this means recognition of where you are and constant repetition, watching the teacher and others and understanding what they are doing and copying this. See this blog 4 Levels of Competence which proposes “How Can You Move Through the Stages of the Competence Model”:

• Identify the skill or behavior you want to learn
• Recognize your current level of competence – this in my view requires personal insight and honest self appraisal
• Seek out learning opportunities
• Practice, practice, practice
• Refine your skills
• Maintain your skills

In this context I like this article I found, The Mind Collection Model: How to Explore the Known Unknowns which proposes a mental model for exploring the unknown using metaphorical analogies:
Known knowns - any information, skill or experience we have acquired and are aware of – symbolised by an owl as representative of wisdom
Unknown knowns - information we already have but are unaware of – dark horses
Known unknowns - the knowledge we don’t possess and are aware of. They’re the unexplored territory at the frontier between the known and the unknown – the elephant in the room
Unknown unknowns – information we don’t even know exists – black swans

Some of this may seem quite simple and obvious, but as I know from personal experience as a lawyer for many years and latterly a student of Tai Chi for over a year now, this is far from the case. See this Forbes article Understanding Circle Of Competence And Knowing The Edge Of Your Competency  which suggests
Einstein said there are five ascending levels of intelligence: smart, intelligent, brilliant, genius and simple. The idea of circle of competence seems to be a rather simple one, which every person with an average intelligence level should be able to grasp. However, in life and in investing, it is very often the level of simplicity that separates the great from the average. Circle of competence, in its simplest form, offers such an opportunity for us to ponder.

As Isaac Newton shrewdly observed “What we know is a drop, what we don’t know is an ocean.”

While Pablo Picasso once said “I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order to learn how to do it.”
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And for a more humorous final thought from Douglas Adam the author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (which you need to read to understand the context) – “Flying is learning how to throw yourself at the ground – and miss”!