Machinery Lubrication

ML_Jan_Feb_2020_Digital_Edition

Machinery Lubrication magazine published by Noria Corporation

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44 | January - February 2020 | www . machinerylubrication.com How to Determine the Competency of a Lubrication Program Paul Hiller | ICML An organization's stage of competence can be gauged by the aggregate competence of its team members along with the efficacy of its lubrication program. TRAINING AND CERTIFICATION L u b r i c a t i o n P r o g ra m s Everyone is performing or learning something at any given moment. Some skills we are good at, and others we are not. Yet just because we believe all is well with a particular skill doesn't mean we couldn't be better at it, but how would we ever know? is is where the four stages of competence come into play. e four stages model provides a means to describe how people learn new skills. Developed roughly 50 years ago by management trainer Martin Broadwell and popularized by psychologist Noel Burch in the 1970s, this model is also known by other names, such as the four stages of learning, the conscious competence ladder, among others. Most often, these stages are related to the learning journey of an individual, but could they be applied to a maintenance organization? In a nutshell, the four stages represent a progressive matrix of consciousness and competence: Stage 1: Unconscious Incompetence A person is blissfully unaware of his or her shortcomings in regard to a particular skill set. e length of time a person remains in this stage depends on how motivated he or she is to learn. Stage 2: Conscious Incompetence Once the person is made aware of his or her shortcomings through one or more resources, the person acknowledges that new skills will be necessary to resolve these deficien- cies. Hopefully, the person starts to learn these skills. Stage 3: Conscious Competence e person practices these new skills, deliberately thinking through each step and procedure. Stage 4: Unconscious Competence e new skills become second nature or habitual, performed competently without any extra concentration or special effort. Surely, these four stages apply individually to lubrication practi- tioners who go through the rigors of tra ining a nd cer tif ic ation. Self-awareness allows people to know not only the stage at which they are currently with a particular skill, but also what they need to do next to get better. When to Become Certified It is an honest question: At which stage would we find candidates to be most receptive to training and certification? e answer might be open to friendly debate, but I would suggest that stage 2, conscious incompetence, is where most prac- tical training begins. Although stage 4, unconscious competence, is where

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