Drive. I know it's an odd sounding question. But if you can, then you probably remember learning to drive. If you can't, you can probably cycle. And you may still remember how you learn to cycle. But I'm going to illustrate the way that we learn anything with my experiences of learning to drive, because I think they're enormously relevant to understanding effective day to day leadership.

So let's start at the beginning. Before I learned to drive, I knew nothing. But that was okay because everyone around me could drive. So it must be simple. It must be easy. I was full of enthusiasm.

I want you to be able to drive and I was confident that I'd be able to do it well because everyone can do it. The thing is, I didn't know anything about being able to drive. I had a vague notion about what the pedals might be for, but I knew nothing. And therefore, I expected it to be easy. I was in a state that is sometimes known as unconscious incompetence. I was incompetent because I didn't know anything.

And I wasn't conscious at all of my incompetence. I was confident, because I didn't know how difficult it was going to be. So I had some lessons. My father arranged them for me. I had a very good driving instructor, but you know what, those first couple of lessons, I think were tricky. I really didn't know what was going on.

You had to do all these different things at the same time you had to look in the mirror you had to indicate you had to take your foot off the accelerator, put your foot on the clutch you had to do something with a gear you had to then lifted off the couch which was difficult and put your photo next accelerate and keep your eyes in the mirror and keep your eyes on the road ahead of you. It was difficult. And you know what? In my first couple of lessons, I started thinking, I'm not going to be able to do this. I can't be the only person in the world that can't drive. I kept making mistakes, I kept stalling the car I kept pulling out in my driving instructor had to stop the car.

My whole confidence was rocked. I reached a stage known as conscious incompetence. I still didn't know how to drive but at least now I knew that I didn't know how to drive. And because I knew how difficult it was. My confidence was flagging badly. I got to a stage where I really didn't want another driving lesson because I thought, if I have another one, I'll just prove to myself how rubbish I am.

My father being very wise, said don't worry. It's a stage. We all go through. He was right. Because I stuck with my driving lessons. I stuck with them, and I got better slowly.

And I reached a point where I was pretty good. I was nearly ready for my driving test. Yes, I sometimes had a bad lesson I made a mistake and I came home demoralized. But sometimes I had a good lesson. nothing went wrong. Everything went right.

And I was enthusiastic. I could basically drive is just that my enthusiasm for driving went up and down, according to how well today's lesson had gone. But I had a driving test, and I passed. in the run up to that driving test, I had reached what's known as conscious competence. I could drive I was competent, but I was very conscious of what I was doing. I had to concentrate.

I had to really think carefully about mirror signal maneuver, accelerator clutch break during everything right? was a matter of deep concentration, conscious competence. But look at me. I'm a little bit older than 17. Now, I've been driving for a number of years. I've gotten to the stage where I can get in a car and I can go to where I need to be without thinking about the process of driving.

Yes, I need to take careful consideration of the driving conditions. I need to watch the road, watch my mirrors, but I don't think about Oh, look at the road or look at the mirror or change gear. That all happens unconsciously. I reached the stage of unconscious competence. I'm competent to drive I can do it well, and I don't need to be thinking about it. Now a friend of mine is a driving instructor.

And he's reached another level because be unconsciously competent means I can drive but I I'm not really sure how I'm doing it. If I had to explain driving to you, I'm not sure I'd know quite how to do it. In order to teach something, well, you need to go beyond that. I became an effective day to day leader. And then I studied the process. And now I have reached a level of conscious competence again, but it's highly conscious, highly competent, like my driving instructor friend.

He knows so much about how driving works, that he can explain it clearly. And that's what I hope to do for you with day to day, effective leadership. But for now, reflect on how those stages of unconscious incompetence, conscious incompetence, conscious competence, and unconscious competence, reflect on your experience of learning to drive, learning to do your job, learning to do anything that you have Are mastered and that you consider worthwhile, because those lessons will be valuable to you in understanding my model of effective day to day